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#■  KALNOVMDCCCCXXXIIII 


/-7-  l.lij>^^ 


BOOKS     BY     SHANE     LESLIE 

Published    by     CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 


THE   IRISH     ISSUE    IN     ITS    AMERICAN 

ASPECTS.     12mo               .                 .    net  Zl. 25 

THE  CELT  AND  THE  WORLD.     12mo      net  1.25 

THE  END  OF  A  CHAPTER.     12mo       .    net  1.25 


The  Irish  Issue 
In  Its  American  Aspect 


The  Irish  Issue 
In  Its  American  Aspect 

A  Contribution  to  the 

Settlement  of  Anglo-American  Relations 

During  and  After  the  Great  War 


By 

Shane  Leslie 


BOSTON  COLLbX^b:  LIBUAUX" 
OaSSTNUT  HILL,  MASS. 

New  York 

Charles  Scribner's  Sons 

1917 


Copyright,  1917,  by 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S   SONS 

Published  November,  1917 


17014 


TO 

HENRY  C.   IDE 

LATE   GOVERNOR    OF   THE    PHILIPPINES 
AND 

U.  S.  MINISTER  TO   SPAIN 


CONTENTS 

PART  ONE 

PAGE 

America's  Family  Ghost 3 

The  Centenary  of  John  Mitchel 17 

The  Memory  of  Parnell 33 

The  Treason  of  the  Redmonds 61 

The  Ethics  of  Sinn  Fein 71 

The  Presidency  of  Pearse 81 

The  Killing  of  Kettle 94 

Carson  and  Casement 106 

PART  TWO 

The  Winning  of  the  United  States 121 

Irish  America  During  the  War 177 

Epilogue 207 


Part  I 


AMERICA'S  FAMILY  GHOST 

Ireland  is  the  spectre  of  the  British  Empire. 
Sometimes  she  seems  to  fill  the  position  of 
America's  family  ghost  as  well.  Uncle  Sam  is 
far  too  good  and  young  to  be  haunted  as  some 
of  the  European  nations  are  haunted  by  the 
undying  phantasms  of  those  they  oppressed. 
Only  the  picturesque  wraith  of  the  Red  Indian 
broods  upon  the  prairies  of  the  West.  If  the 
American  has  pressed  into  other  lands  than  his 
original  colonies,  it  has  always  been  to  redeem 
and  civilise,  never  to  enslave  persons  or  dese- 
crate territory.  No  ghost  came  out  of  the 
Philippines  to  decry  his  record  before  the  na- 
tions. His  Cuban  conscience  is  clean.  The 
Queen  of  Hawaii,  the  pride  of  Spain,  and  the 
Pekin  summer  palace  need  never  trouble  his 
soul.  The  hazard  of  the  world  brought  each 
into  his  way  and  he  dealt  with  them  severally, 
as  a  gentleman  should  under  the  circumstances. 
The  American  gentleman  is  so  by  national 
tradition  rather  than  by  individual  birth.     Dis- 


4  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

tressed  nations  make  the  same  appeal  to  his 
sense  of  chivalry  that  distressed  ladies  used  to 
make  to  the  European  knight.  He  is  largely 
descended  from  those  who  at  different  times 
have  made  good  their  release  from  the  English 
Tory,  the  German  Junker,  and  the  Irish  land- 
lord. There  is  a  gulf  between  the  old  families 
of  America  and  the  European  aristocrats,  whose 
past  deeds  cause  phantoms  to  scream  about  the 
banners  of  their  country,  whenever  unfurled 
even  in  the  justest  cause. 

If  America  has  a  ghost,  it  is  Ireland.  But  if 
Ireland  haunts  America,  it  is  with  a  haunting 
based  on  love  and  not  on  hate.  Like  the  Janus 
of  the  Atlantic,  Ireland  is  two-faced.  Towards 
England  she  ever  looks  with  anguish  and  bit- 
terness, towards  the  United  States  with  tearful 
hope  and  wistful  affection.  For  in  the  nine- 
teenth century  America  was  to  Ireland  what 
France  was  in  the  eighteenth,  la  grande  nation ! 
The  strongest  and  choicest  went  into  their 
service,  military  in  the  case  of  France,  indus- 
trial in  that  of  America.  The  canals  and  then 
the  railways  of  America  were  created  by  Irish 
labour.  The  industrial  connection  found 
apotheosis  in  the  names  of  McCormick  and 
Ford. 

Ireland  has  always  believed  that  her  freedom 


AMERICA'S  FAMILY  GHOST         5 

was  due  to  her  through  American  means.  No 
European  country  was  better  represented  in 
the  Revolutionary  ranks.  Deep  in  Irish  hearts 
was  laid  the  unwritten  covenant  that  out  of 
America  Ireland  should  be  reborn,  out  of  the 
strong  sweetness.  It  was  unwritten  officially, 
save  in  the  script  of  Benjamin  Franklin,  who 
had  attended  the  debates  in  the  old  Dublin 
Parliament  and  inscribed  Ireland  in  the  list  of 
the  revolting  colonies  to  be  united  against 
England.  Since  then  sympathy  wdth  Ireland 
has  become  a  tradition  in  the  United  States, 
lisped  by  statesmen  and  even  pronounced  by 
Presidents.  More  than  once  Americans  have 
threatened  to  obtain  by  force  what  the  Great 
War  brought  them  a  striking  opportunity  to 
procure  by  peaceful  consent. 

It  is  curious  indeed  how  Irish  action  and  re- 
action has  run  like  an  uncanny  spirit  through 
the  woof  of  American  history.  Before  the 
Revolution,  Ireland  and  the  American  colonies 
were  plaintiffs  in  the  same  suit.  Molyneux's 
famous  Case  of  Ireland  Stated,  the  first  hand- 
book of  Irish  nationalism,  became  a  text-book 
to  American  thinkers.  Otis' s  Rights  of  the  Col- 
onies  was  its  adaptation.  Rebels,  whether  in 
Ireland  or  in  America,  were  the  same  children 
of  the  stormy  time-spirit  loosed  in  the  last  dec- 


6  THE   IRISH  ISSUE 

ades  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Lord  Charle- 
mont,  the  head  of  the  Irish  Volunteers,  used 
to  be  toasted  as  the  "Irish  Washington." 
When  America  exchanged  her  suit  for  an  ap- 
peal to  arms,  Ulstermen  helped  her  as  bravely 
in  America  as  they  helped  Wexford's  appeal 
to  arms  in  1798.  Ulstermen  were  always  the 
most  revolutionary  members  of  the  English- 
speaking  world  and  in  no  town  of  the  empire 
was  the  capture  of  the  Bastille  more  fiercely 
celebrated  than  in  Belfast. 

American  independence  had  as  great  an 
effect  on  Ireland  as  the  Russian  revolution  has 
had  on  the  modern  world  at  large.  It  left  Ire- 
land dreamily  ambitious,  eternally  unsettled, 
and  enamoured  of  the  sunset  in  the  West. 
Only  the  perennial  safety-valve  of  emigration 
out  of  the  political  wilderness  at  home  into  the 
Promised  Republic  prevented  explosions  in  Ire- 
land. Relations  between  Ireland  and  the 
United  States  began  immediately.  Catholic 
and  Protestant,  Ulstermen  and  Irishmen,  "the 
sons  of  Uladh  and  of  Erinn,"  as  the  old  writers 
divided  Irishmen,  were  one  in  hailing  American 
independence.  There  is  no  doubt  that  Lord 
North's  first  conciliatory  act  towards  the  Irish 
Catholics  was  due  to  the  desire  to  foreclose 
sympathy    with    the    Revolutionary    States, 


AMERICA'S  FAMILY  GHOST         7 

Oddly  enough  the  same  hired  Hessians  were 
loosed  on  rebels  in  Ireland  and  America. 

It  is  a  historical  point  whether  the  American 
Revolution  would  have  succeeded,  had  it  not 
been  for  the  feud  of  the  exiled  Ulstermen  with 
the  English  Tories.  The  original  Bunker's  Hill 
is  near  Belfast.  Both  Scotch  and  Milesian 
Irish  rallied  to  Washington.  No  fewer  than 
thirteen  of  the  Revolutionary  generals  were 
born  in  Ireland  herself.  It  was  historically 
poetic  how  memories  of  the  different  Irish  re- 
bellions found  echoes  in  America's  wars.  Rob- 
ert Francis  Paine,  who  with  eight  others  of 
Irish  kindred,  signed  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence, was  really  an  O'Neill,  sixth  in  de- 
scent from  Shane  O'Neill,  who  had  held  Ulster 
against  Elizabeth.  General  James  Moore,  who 
took  the  field  for  the  insurgents,  was  descended 
from  Rory  O'More,  the  most  romantic  figure 
in  the  Rising  of  1641.  General  Clinton  found 
"the  emigrants  from  Ireland  our  most  serious 
antagonists."  Washington's  aides  included  a 
Fitzgerald  and  Stephen  Moylan,  a  brother  of 
the  then  Bishop  of  Cork.  It  was  a  Barry  of 
Wexford  who  took  the  new  American  flag  to 
sea.  There  is  an  entire  tradition  of  the  Irish 
share  in  the  Revolution.  A  Sullivan  fired  the 
first  shot  and  captured  Fort  William  and  Mary, 


8  THE   IRISH  ISSUE 

avenging  the  battle  of  the  Boyne  thereby. 
The  British  General  Eraser  fell  to  a  sniper 
called  Murphy.  An  Irishman  ferried  Wash- 
ington across  the  Delaware  and  a  Lynch  kept 
the  doors  of  the  first  Congress.  It  is  claimed 
that  Molly  Pitcher  was  an  Irish  girl  of  the 
family  of  Hayes.  Certain  it  is  that  the 
Friendly  Sons  of  St.  Patrick  raised  a  ''Liberty 
Loan"  for  Washington.  And  when  it  came  to 
peace,  it  was  on  the  farm  of  an  Irish  Carroll 
that  the  White  House  was  erected  on  the 
model  of  Leinster  House  in  Dublin.  The 
Feast  of  St.  Patrick  had  already  passed  into 
the  American  calendar.  During  the  Revolu- 
tion it  had  proved  a  lucky  day  for  the  United 
States.  On  that  day  in  1776  the  English 
evacuated  Boston  and  on  that  day  in  the 
following  year  a  French  ship  arrived  with  a 
stand  of  arms. 

Ireland  and  America  went  their  ways, 
though,  as  Professor  Dunning  well  states  in 
his  work  on  Anglo-American  relations:  "There 
survived  in  the  United  States  the  tradition  of 
Grattan's  Parliament,  which  received  the 
breath  of  life  through  the  success  of  the  war 
that  made  America  free  from  Great  Britain." 

When  war  broke  out  afresh  between  England 
and  America  in  1812  Ireland  lifted  no  voice. 


AMERICA'S  FAMILY  GHOST         9 

Her  revolutionary  zeal  had  been  quenched  in 
the  Rising  of  1798,  and  her  adventurous  youth 
had  gone  with  "Charles  O'Malley"  into  Wel- 
lington's armies.  But  in  America  there  were 
no  less  than  six  of  the  "United  Irishmen"  in 
Congress  to  vote  for  war  against  England,  while 
hosts  of  exiles  took  their  part  in  that  amazing 
campaign  which  gave  America  her  national 
anthem.  It  was  then  that  Commodore  Stew- 
art, the  grandfather  of  Parnell,  won  his  naval 
honours  against  the  British  fleet  and  that  An- 
drew Jackson,  the  son  of  an  Ulsterman,  slew 
and  defeated  Pakenham  at  the  battle  of  New 
Orleans.  It  was  in  keeping  with  historical  jus- 
tice, for  Pakenham  was  one  of  the  corrupt  oli- 
garchs who  had  sold  the  old  Parliament  in 
Dublin. 

During  the  hostilities  It  required  special  ef- 
forts to  obtain  the  treatment  of  prisoners  of 
war  for  captured  Irish-Americans.  Bad  as  was 
the  measure  meted  out  to  all  American  prison- 
ers, it  is  pleasant  to  find  Congress  recognising 
the  humanity  which  befell  some  who  were  sent 
to  Ireland.  After  the  war  Irish  matters  tended 
to  be  forgotten  in  America.  It  was  only  two 
great  and  appalling  events,  which  gave  Ireland 
a  new  footing  in  the  New  World,  from  which 
she  could  bitterly  and  successfully  oppose  and 


10  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

thwart  some  of  England's  dearest  projects. 
They  were  the  Irish  Famine  and  the  American 
Civil  War. 

Sydney  Smith  had  pointed  out  that  "the 
disaffected  state  of  Ireland  is  a  standing  pre- 
mium for  war  with  every  Cabinet  which  has 
the  most  distant  intention  of  quarrelling  with 
this  country  for  any  other  cause."  If  the 
famine  supplied  the  necessary  disaffection,  the 
Civil  War  led  to  serious  Anglo-American  quar- 
relling. 

The  Irish  famine  emptied  the  strongest  and 
best  survivors  of  the  race  in  shoals  upon  the 
American  seaboard.  At  terrible  cost  and  at 
an  unrecorded  loss  the  mighty  transmigration 
was  accomplished.  Success  and  prosperity 
were  by  no  means  theirs  for  the  questing,  then 
or  previously.  For  thousands  who  had  per- 
ished as  pioneers,  history  records  the  John  Sul- 
livan, a  centenarian  schoolmaster  from  Limer- 
ick, who  became  the  father  of  governors  both 
of  New  Hampshire  and  Massachusetts,  and 
the  grandfather  of  a  governor  of  Maine.  It 
was  the  same  after  the  famine.  For  every  one 
who  left  his  mark  or  famous  descendants,  a 
thousand  fell  unknown  in  the  struggle.  Nev- 
ertheless numbers  and  morality  told,  and  as 
F.  Hugh  O'Donnell  pointed  out:  "From  Presi- 


AMERICA'S  FAMILY  GHOST       11 

dents  of  the  Republic  to  Presidents  of  Trusts, 
and  from  the  pioneer  founders  of  eastern  cities 
to  the  mighty  athletes  of  Olympian  competi- 
tions, where  will  you  not  find  Irish-Ameri- 
cans ?  "  Never  again  could  Sydney  Smith  gibe 
the  United  States  with  "  where  are  their 
Burkes,  their  Sheridans  ?  " 

The  Civil  War  gave  the  Irish  a  magnificent 
opportunity  of  proving  their  loyalty  to  the 
States.  Irish  services  in  the  field  outweighed 
any  local  indulgence  in  draught  rioting.  Arch- 
bishop Hughes  was  successfuly  invoked  by  the 
civil  authority  to  allay  the  riots  and  in  death 
was  honoured  by  a  tribute  from  Lincoln. 
Archbishop  Purcell  hoisted  "Old  Glory,"  which 
perhaps  may  be  Latinised  as  Gloria  Patri  Pa- 
trice,  from  the  spires  of  Cincinnati  Cathedral. 
As  President  Hayes  said  afterwards  of  this  in- 
cident: "The  spire  was  beautiful,  but  the  Cath- 
olic Prelate  made  it  radiant  with  hope  and 
glory  for  our  country."  The  events  of  the 
Civil  War  cemented  Irish  and  American  feeling. 
The  Irish  Brigade  under  Meagher  died  on  the 
slopes  of  Fredericksburg,  "one  of  the  hand- 
somest things  in  the  whole  war,"  confessed 
Longstreet.  A  shaft  marks  where  the  Irish 
Sixty-ninth  threw  back  Pickett's  charge  at 
Gettysburg. 


n  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

In  the  seventies  and  eighties  the  Irish  cause 
caught  fire  in  America,  There  was  the  Ala- 
bama and  the  Trent  to  commend  it  to  American 
taste.  Sumner  was  more  of  a  prophet  than  a 
pohtician  when  he  said:  "Justice  to  Ireland  is 
a  British  necessity."  There  was  even  a  sug- 
gestion in  the  House  to  recognise  the  "Irish 
Repubhc"  as  a  belhgerent.  Soldiers  returning 
from  iVppomattox  took  up  the  refrain  "We're 
marching  next  to  Ireland."  The  Fenian  move- 
ment was  cradled  round  the  camp-fires  of  the 
Union. 

During  the  eighties  the  Irish-Americans 
reached  their  zenith.  Governor  Curtis  stated 
that  there  were  no  less  than  forty-two  Irish- 
men in  the  House,  while  one-half  claimed  to 
have  Irish  blood  in  their  veins.  It  became  al- 
most necessary  for  an  American  President  to 
claim  Irish  blood  to  be  a  successful  candidate. 
It  was  amusing  how  Cleveland's  mother  (Neal) 
was  made  to  do  duty  against  his  rival  Blaine's 
Irish  grandfather  (Gillespie). 

American  ministers  in  London  came  to  be 
acquainted  intimately  with  the  Irish  question. 
Mr.  Adams  vexed  his  last  days  trying  to  pro- 
cure the  release  of  Fenian  prisoners.  The  Dub- 
lin police  were  able  to  do  what  Confederate  fire 
could  not  and  arrest  Colonel  Denis  Bourke, 


AMERICA'S  FAMILY  GHOST       13 

who  had  been  the  first  to  cross  the  bloody 
angle  at  Spottsylvania.  Lowell's  ministry  was 
perpetually  troubled  by  Coercion  Acts.  He 
diagnosed  Ireland  not  unskilfully  as,  "the  clot 
of  blood  in  England's  veins  always  discomfort- 
able  and  liable  always  to  lodge  in  the  brain." 
All  the  great  thinkers  saw  truly  but  were 
thwarted  by  the  politicians.  Goldwin  Smith 
realised  that  "nothing  stands  in  the  way  of  a 
reconciliation  between  the  two  branches  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  race  except  the  influence  of  the 
Irish." 

The  war  with  Spain  seemed  to  afford  a  pos- 
sibility of  general  reconciliation.  On  the  one 
hand  friendship  sprang  up  between  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  twain  and  on  the  other  hand  Irishmen 
were  under  arms  for  America.  In  the  most 
brilliant  exploit  of  the  war  Hobson's  choice  of 
companions  included  a  Murphy  and  a  Kelly. 
But  the  Boer  War  sent  England  and  America 
their  different  ways  and  the  Irish  banshee  set 
out  to  haunt  both,  one  with  remembrance  of 
ancient  wrong  and  the  other  with  pleading  of 
benefit  performed. 

Two  totally  distinct  views  may  naturally  be 
taken  as  to  the  Irish  infiltration  into  America. 
On  the  practical  side  we  find  Charles  Norton 
writing:  "The  Irish  have  become  inmates  of 


14  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

our  houses  to  a  degree  of  intimacy  impossible 
if  it  had  not  been  for  their  pecuniary  honesty 
and  their  chastity."  From  the  old-fashioned 
view  of  Saxon  sentiment  Professor  Freeman 
grieved:  ''Alas,  alas,  in  the  oldest  of  the  wooden 
houses  when  I  went  to  find  New  England  Puri- 
tans I  found  Ould  Irish  Papishes,  Biddy  instead 
of  Hepzibah."  Socially  and  domestically  the 
Irish  have  done  for  the  United  States  what  no 
other  race  could  have  achieved.  Martially  and 
politically,  also,  they  have  rendered  Celtic  ser- 
vice. But  they  have  complicated  the  foreign 
relations  of  the  country  in  one  important  as- 
pect. They  have  kept  and  still  keep  England 
and  America  apart.  By  an  overoptimistic 
estimate  Lord  Bryce  wrote  in  September  of 
1914  of  Irish  hostility:  "It  is  now  confined  toji 
comparatively  small  section  and  is  likely  soon 
to  disappear.  But  from  the  end  of  the  Civil 
War  till  about  the  end  of  the  century  it  was 
an  obstacle  to  perfectly  good  relations."  As 
events  have  shown,  a  better  estimate  was  made 
by  J.  F.  Maguire,  M.  P.,  in  1867:  "It  may  sub- 
side, so  may  the  sea.  But  like  the  sea  the  first 
breath  will  set  it  again  in  motion,  while  a  storm 
would  lash  it  into  fury.  It  may  subside,  but 
it  is  difficult  to  think  how  without  some  coun- 
teracting cause  it  can  die  out." 


AMERICA'S  FAMILY  GHOST       15 

Henceforth  the  ghost  of  Ireland  sat  at  the 
American  hearth  to  rise  and  wail  like  a  watch- 
dog at  any  approach  of  the  hereditary  enemy, 
whether  friendly  or  hostile.  In  the  uttermost 
parts  of  the  sea  Ireland  has  risen  again  and 
again  to  baffle  and  perplex  England.  She  has 
stood  not  merely  geographically  but  politically 
between  England  and  America.  In  the  world's 
great  changing  time  when  alliances  are  shuffled 
like  cards  and  the  traditional  emotions  of  peo- 
ples are  thrown  into  new  shapes,  has  not  a 
time  come  for  the  reconsideration  of  the  rela- 
tions affecting  Ireland,  England,  and  America  .^ 
As  long  ago  as  1852  Seward  declared:  "The 
people  of  Ireland  are  affiliated  to  us  as  we  are 
to  the  people  of  Great  Britain.  Surely  there 
can  be  no  offence  given  by  a  younger  member 
in  offering  mediation  between  the  elder  breth- 
ren of  the  same  family  upon  a  point  of  differ- 
ence between  them."  Has  not  the  time  come 
for  England  to  cry  peace  to  her  pursuing 
avenger?  Is  it  not  good  for  all  that  the  un- 
forgiving ghost  that  haunts  the  common  pur- 
pose of  England  and  America  should  be  laid.^^ 
Does  not  the  exorcism  and  the  magical  influ- 
ence which  can  lead  to  Ireland's  healing,  Eng- 
land's pardon,  and  America's  comfort  lie  in 
the  stupendous  sentences  by  which  America 


16  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

made  known  to  the  world  the  unfurhng  of 
her  flag  over  Armageddon?  Is  none  great 
enough  to  banish  the  Banshee  of  the  Atlantic  ? 


II 

THE  CENTENARY  OF  JOHN  MITCHEL 

The  centenary  of  John  Mitchel  has  passed. 
Of  all  the  surprises  of  the  war  the  most  curious 
piece  of  topsy-turv^^dom  was  enacted  when  the 
British  Commission  was  received  by  the  mayor 
of  New  York,  the  grandson  of  John  Mitchel, 
Irish  patriot  and  British  felon.  In  political  de- 
scent Mr.  Balfour  was  but  two  places  from  Dis- 
raeli, the  Tory  leader,  who  prevented  the  head 
of  the  Mitchel  family  of  two  generations  back 
from  entering  the  House  of  Commons  on  the 
ground  of  his  former  conviction. 

John  Mitchel  was  the  most  brilliant,  the  most 
downright,  the  most  dreamshot  of  the  patriots 
of  forty-eight.  Some  may  live  by  "the  pathos 
of  a  pikehead,"  but  Mitchel  lives  by  his  pen. 
Of  all  the  literary  mirrors  which  were  held  up 
to  the  terrible  decade  preceding  the  Irish  fam- 
ine, his  Jail  Journal  remains  the  most  polished, 
the  most  reflective.  He  was  the  literary  fore- 
runner of  modern  Irish  nationalism,  and  after 
his  escape  from  Australia  he  initiated  those 

17 


18  THE   IRISH  ISSUE 

Irish-American  relations  which  have  lasted 
down  to  our  own  times  with  but  slight  modi- 
fication. 

''Nations  have  no  future  state,"  was  his  be- 
lief, and  since  they  have  no  hope  of  immor- 
tality in  the  next  world  he  required  them  to 
seek  rebirth  in  this.  Hence  the  "Young  Ire- 
land" movement.  It  has  found  its  record  in 
two  books,  in  Mitchel's  Journal  and  in  his  col- 
league Gavan  Duffy's  Young  Ireland.  Their 
centenaries  have  fallen  within  a  few  months  of 
each  other.  By  a  playfulness  of  fate  one  be- 
came a  prime  minister  in  the  country  to  which 
the  other  had  been  sent  as  a  convict. 

Mitchel  wrote  under  grim  circumstance.  As 
a  partisan  he  felt  an  unholy  hatred  for  his  op- 
ponents and  some  sympathetic  horror  for  his 
own  plight,  which  was  pitiable  in  all  conscience. 
His  writing  is  stuff  that  illuminates  history  as 
with  gas  flares.  Not  unlike  the  quivering  bit- 
terness of  Swift,  his  Journal  is  filled  with  the 
living  utterance,  the  trampled  spirit,  the  exul- 
tation and  defiance  of  the  dean,  varied  only 
with  bursts  of  ironical  philosophy. 

The  history  of  Ireland  in  the  forties  has 
come  down  to  us  in  a  blur  of  broken  enthusiasm 
and  disheartened  battlement.  The  Young  Ire- 
land movement  had  dissipated  itself  with  the 


CENTENARY  OF  JOHN  MITCHEL    19 

fine  frenzy  due  to  its  name.  Thomas  Davis 
had  Hved  and  died.  Meagher,  not  yet  an 
American  general,  had  threatened  the  sword, 
which  Thackeray  had  fixed  as  his  eternal  nick- 
name. The  tragedy  had  been  that  O'Connell 
had  died  old,  while  Young  Ireland  had  died 
young.  The  great  iridescent  bubble  of  O'Con- 
nelFs  oratory  had  been  pricked  by  the  sting  of 
death.  MitcheFs  paper  had  been  suppressed. 
Ireland  had  entered  into  the  ghastly  trance  of 
famine.  The  whole  nation  from  the  heights  of 
enthusiastic  and  aerial  agitation  had  fallen  into 
the  depths  of  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death. 
Mitchel  had  seen  it  all  with  the  cool  eyes  of  an 
Ulsterman,  and  knowing  the  end  was  near, 
gave  notice  of  armed  resistance.  The  govern- 
ment gave  him  fourteen  years  to  reconsider  his 
decision,  in  prison. 

So  the  Journal  came  to  be  written,  with  its 
wistful  but  fierce  recapitulation  of  events, 
forces,  and  characters,  throwing  a  clear  light 
upon  the  workings  of  that  period  of  debacle. 
To  Mitchel  England  was  responsible  for  the 
whole  misery,  but  O'Connell  was  no  hero.  A 
little  sadly  he  had  watched  the  great-souled 
Homeric  mobs  that  had  flocked  to  the  monster 
meetings.  He  had  foreseen  that  all  was  not 
well,     though     O'Connell's     perorations     had 


20  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

swelled  with  his  audiences.  He  was  one  of 
those  who  had  striven  to  add  some  real  fuel  to 
the  wind  which  O'Connell  thought  was  suffi- 
cient to  keep  the  smoking  embers  of  nation- 
hood in  a  blaze.  He  differed  a  good  deal  from 
O'Connell  as  to  how  the  liberation  of  Ireland 
should  be  achieved.  Mitchel  thought  only  of 
liberty.  O'Connell  not  unnaturally  thought 
of  the  ''Liberator,"  as  he  was  called.  The 
youth  of  Ireland  were  swayed  between  repeal 
and  revolution.  It  was  the  perennial  Irish 
strife  between  the  theorists  of  moral  force  and 
the  abettors  of  physical  force.  ''Tell  me  not  of 
O'Connell's  son,"  thundered  the  author  of  the 
Jail  Journal;  "his  father  begat  him  in  moral 
force  and  in  patience  and  perseverance  his 
mother  conceived  him!"  Mitchel  possessed 
that  gift  of  the  terrible  phrase  which  has  always 
played  havoc  with  Irish  parties.  When  this 
same  son  of  O'Connell  visited  Paris  in  1848  and 
made  some  mild  depreciation  of  the  blood  shed 
at  the  barricades,  out  spake  Mitchel  in  the 
United  Irishman: 

From  amidst  the  sacred  graves,  where  the  soldiers  of  liberty 
sleep  gloriously  in  their  bloody  shrouds  and  the  hymns  of  vic- 
tory are  chanted  by  a  liberated  nation,  what  craven  canting 
drivel  is  this  borne  to  our  ears  ?  It  was  not  in  Ireland's  name 
that  he  sent  round  among  the  Parisians  a  dead  man's  hat,  a 
posthumous  begging  box ! 


CENTENARY  OF  JOHN  MITCHEL    21 

From  his  prison  cell  he  wrote  a  passage  of 
unique  strength  on  the  old  man  himself,  that 
Irish  writers  dare  not  quote: 

Poor  old  Dan  !  wonderful,  mighty,  jovial  and  mean  old  man  ! 
with  silver  tongue  and  smile  of  witchery  and  heart  of  melting 
ruth !  lying  tongue !  smile  of  treachery !  heart  of  unfathomable 
fraud !  What  a  royal  yet  vulgar  soul !  with  the  keen  eye  and 
potent  swoop  of  a  generous  eagle  of  Cairn  Tual,  with  the  base 
servility  of  a  hound  and  the  cold  cruelty  of  a  spider !  Think 
of  his  speech  for  John  Magee,  the  most  powerful  forensic 
achievement  since  before  Demosthenes  and  then  think  of  the 
gorgeous  and  gossamer  theory  of  moral  and  peaceful  agitation. 
And  after  one  has  thought  of  all  this  and  more,  what  then  can 
a  man  say?  what  but  pray  that  Irish  earth  may  lie  light  on 
O'Connell's  breast  and  that  the  good  God  who  knew  how  to 
create  so  wondrous  a  creature  may  have  mercy  on  his  soul. 

Mitchel  was  unafraid  to  write  strong  stuff. 
He  beHeved  that  O'Connell  led  the  Irish  "all 
wrong  for  forty  years,"  that  they  had  followed 
him  into  the  wilderness  of  agitation  after  agi- 
tation, mistaking  in  their  simplicity  every  oasis 
for  the  Promised  Land.  Rich  and  sparkling 
oratory  was  their  manna.  And  the  govern- 
ment watched,  knowing  that  intoxication  with 
words  or  with  wine  must  be  the  prelude  to  a 
fall.  Within  a  few  years,  indeed,  there  happed 
a  fall  such  as  few  could  have  imagined,  a  fall 
in  the  population  by  two  millions.  After  the 
happy  hurrahing  came  the  great  famine,  a 
story  that  is  beyond  the  function  of  words.     It 


22  THE   IRISH  ISSUE 

changed  Irish  history  and,  more  serious  still,  it 
changed  Irish  character.  Mitchel  made  the 
gruesome  discovery  that  it  changed  even  the 
Irish  soil: 


Human  bones  considered  merely  as  phosphate  of  lime,  not 
counting  the  bones  of  famished  dogs,  to  the  amount  of  fifteen 
hundred  thousand  perfect  skeletons,  most  of  them  not  buried 
deep  but  judiciously  scattered,  with  a  slight  covering  of  mould 
or  even  as  top  dressing,  must  have  considerably  mellowed  and 
fattened  the  soil  of  Ireland  within  twelve  months. 


The  plight  of  the  people  was  pitiful.  Their 
enemies  told  them  it  was  their  own  fault  for 
agitating  and  they  must  wait.  Their  friends 
told  them  it  was  the  fault  of  the  government 
and  they  must  wait.  They  waited,  but  famine 
and  fever  waited  not.  Official  stupidity  slew 
thousands,  where  the  potato  blight  slew  its 
hundreds.  Relief  in  burlesque  was  introduced. 
Crowds  were  employed  in  uprooting  hills  and 
burying  the  debris  in  carefully  prepared  pits. 
Irish  corn  was  exported  and  Indian  meal 
fetched  from  the  ends  of  the  earth  to  take  its 
place.  The  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  sug- 
gested as  a  remedy  a  day  of  national  prayer 
and  fasting,  which  was  certainly  practicable. 
The  viceroy  at  the  time  condemned  *' intra- 
mural"  interments  as  unsanitary.     Mitchel's 


CENTENARY  OF  JOHN  MITCHEL    23 

sarcasm  was  instant.  ''And  you  starveling 
people  of  Ireland,  where  do  you  bury  your 
dead?  For  twelve  months  you  have  enjoyed 
the  full  benefits  of  extra-mural  interment  and 
in  the  open  air,  too !" 

Of  the  famine  he  left  a  weird  but  realistic 
description,  which  deserves  literary  remem- 
brance : 

Go  where  you  would,  in  the  heart  of  the  town  or  in  the 
suburb,  on  the  mountain  side,  on  the  level  plain,  there  was 
the  stillness  and  heavy  pall-like  feel  of  the  chamber  of  death. 
You  stood  in  the  presence  of  a  dread,  silent,  vast  dissolution. 
An  unseen  ruin  was  creeping  around  you.  You  saw  no  war 
of  classes,  no  open  janissary  war  of  foreigners,  no  human 
agency  of  destruction.  You  could  weep,  but  the  rising  curse 
died  unspoken  within  your  heart  like  a  profanity.  Human 
passion  there  was  none  but  inhuman  and  unearthly  quiet. 
Children  met  you  toiling  heavily  on  stone  heaps,  but  their 
burning  eyes  were  senseless,  and  their  faces  cramped  and 
weazened  like  stunted  old  men.  Gangs  worked,  but  without 
a  murmur  or  a  whistle  or  a  laugh,  ghostly  like  voiceless  shad- 
ows to  the  eye.  Even  womanhood  had  ceased  to  be  womanly. 
The  birds  of  the  air  carolled  no  more,  and  the  crow  and  the 
raven  dropped  dead  upon  the  wing.  The  very  dogs,  hairless 
with  the  head  down  and  the  vertebrae  of  the  back  protruding 
like  a  saw  of  bone,  glared  on  you  from  the  ditchside  with  a 
wolfish  avid  eye,  and  then  slunk  away  scowling  and  cowardly. 
Nay,  the  sky  of  heaven,  the  blue  mountains,  the  still  lake, 
stretching  far  away  westward,  looked  not  as  their  wont.  Be- 
tween them  and  you  rose  up  a  steaming  agony,  a  film  of  suffer- 
ing, impervious  and  dim.  It  seemed  as  though  the  soul  of 
the  land  was  faint  and  dying,  and  that  the  faintness  and  the 
death  had  crept  into  all  things  of  heaven  and  earth. 


M  THE   IRISH  ISSUE 

This  was  a  sombre  vignette  of  an  event  which 
Lord  Brougham  deplored  as  "surpassing  any- 
thing in  the  pages  of  Thucydides,  on  the  canvas 
of  Poussin,   in   the  dismal  chant  of  Dante." 

During  the  short  run  of  his  paper  he  literally 
set  the  currents  and  ideals  of  Irish  nationalism 
as  they  were  to  move  Irishmen  until  the  rise  of 
Sinn  Fein.  His  appreciation  of  the  land  ques- 
tion was  succinct: 

Land  in  Ireland  is  life.  Just  in  the  proportion  that  our 
people  contrive  to  keep  or  to  gain  some  foothold  on  the  soil,  in 
that  proportion  exactly  they  will  live  and  not  die.  Ireland  for 
the  Irish  means  primarily  and  mainly  not  Irishmen  for  Irish 
oflBces,  it  means  Irishmen  fixed  upon  Irish  ground  and  grow- 
ing there,  occupying  the  island  like  trees  in  a  living  forest. 

While  the  phrases  of  his  white-heat  hate  have 
passed  into  a  coinage,  which  is  current  to  this 
day,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  he  had  a 
constructive  programme  and  that  he  urged  Na- 
tionalist unity  with  the  Ulster,  out  of  which 
his  own  soul  had  been  digged,  and  even  with 
the  people  as  distinct  from  the  government  of 
England.  It  is  true  he  issued  that  terrible 
saying  that,  if  he  could,  he  would  pour  coals  of 
fire  on  the  heads  of  the  enemies  of  his  country, 
a  saying  that  is  recorded  on  a  public  monu- 
ment in  Cork.     It  was  true  he  avenged  himself 


CENTENARY  OF  JOHN  MITCHEL    25 

when  carried  from  penal  station  to  penal  sta- 
tion, from  Bermuda  to  the  Cape,  from  the 
Cape  to  Van  Diemen's  Land,  by  saying  that 
on  British  felony  the  sun  never  set !  True  that 
he  fiercely  prayed  that  whatever  disgrace  Eng- 
lish law  might  inflict  upon  him  it  might  remain 
upon  his  head  and  upon  the  head  of  his  chil- 
dren, but  his  hatred  of  England  was  exceeded 
by  his  love  of  Ireland.  Of  that  love  of  Ireland 
there  are  pathetic  instances  in  the  Jail  Journal, 
as  when  he  wrote  from  Bermuda: 

Well  known  to  me  by  day  and  by  night  are  the  voices  of 
Ireland;  winds  and  waters,  the  faces  of  her  ancient  mountains. 
I  see  it,  I  hear  it  all,  for  by  the  wondrous  power  of  imagination, 
informed  by  strong  love,  I  do  indeed  live  more  truly  in  Ireland 
than  on  these  unblessed  rocks. 

And  no  one  wrote  more  pitifully  of  the  Irish 
dispersion  than  Mitchel,  as  he  found  himself 
on  one  of  the  very  convict  ships: 

They  were  born,  these  men  to  a  heritage  of  unquenched  hun- 
ger, amongst  the  teeming  plenty  of  their  mother  land,  hunted 
like  noxious  beasts  from  all  shelter  on  her  hospitable  bosom, 
driven  to  stay  their  gnawing  hunger  enemy  with  what  certain 
respectable  men  call  their  property.  And  so  now  they  are 
traversing  the  deep  under  bayonet  points,  to  be  shot  out  like 
rubbish  on  a  bare  foreign  strand,  and  told  to  seek  their  for- 
tune there  amongst  a  people  whose  very  language  they  know 
not.  They  hardly  know  what  troops  of  fell  foes,  with  quivers 
full  of  arrows,  are  hunting  for  their  young  souls  and  bodies. 


26  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

they  hardly  know  and  so  much  the  more  pity  for  them  they 
hardly  feel  it.  But  in  poor  frail  huts  on  many  an  Irish  hill- 
side, their  fathers  and  mothers  dwell  with  poverty  and  labor 
and  sorrow  and  mourn  for  their  lost  children  with  a  mourning 
that  will  know  no  comfort  till  they  are  gathered  to  their  people 
in  the  chapel  yard.  For  indeed  these  convict  boys  were  not 
born  of  the  rock  or  the  oaktree,  human  mothers  bore  them, 
sang  them  asleep  in  lowly  cradles,  wept  and  prayed  for  them. 

But  they  were  not  only  peasants  whom  he 
met  in  the  felon  field.  If  Mitchel  had  been  the 
Robespierre  of  the  movement.  Smith  O'Brien 
had  been  reckoned  an  Irish  Lafayette.  He  had 
been  sentenced  to  death  and  then  to  penal  ser- 
vitude, for  the  law  made  no  difference  between 
Gael  and  Gall,  between  republican  and  aristo- 
crat. Mitchel  met  him  in  the  Antipodes  and 
made  some  amends  for  the  ungenerous  mirth 
of  Thackeray  in  a  passage  which  will  outlive 
even  the  statue  which  Ireland  gave  O'Brien  in 
Dublin: 

It  is  sad  to  look  upon  this  noblest  of  Irishmen,  thrust  in 
here  among  the  offscourings  of  England's  jails,  with  his  home 
desolated,  and  his  hopes  ruined,  and  his  defeated  life  falling 
into  the  sere  and  yellow  leaf.  He  is  fifty  years  of  age,  yet  has 
all  the  high  and  intense  pleasure  of  youth  in  these  majestic 
hills  and  woods,  softened  indeed  and  made  pensive  by  sorrow 
and  haunted  by  the  ghosts  of  buried  hopes.  He  is  a  rare  and 
noble  sight  to  see,  a  man  who  cannot  be  crushed,  bowed  or 
broken,  who  can  stand  firm  on  his  own  feet  against  all  the 
tumult  and  tempest  of  this  ruffianly  world,  with  his  bold  brow 


CENTENARY  OF  JOHN  MITCHEL    27 

fronting  the  sun  like  any  other  Titan,  son  of  Coelus  and  Terra, 
anchored  immovably  upon  his  own  brave  heart  within,  his 
clear  eye  and  soul  open  as  ever  to  all  the  melodies  and  splen- 
dours of  earth  and  heaven  and  calmly  waiting  for  the  angel 
death. 

So  wrote  the  grandfather  of  Mayor  Mitchel 
of  the  relative  of  Sir  Cecil  Spring-Rice. 

Some  of  Mitchel's  political  writings  are  so 
scarce  that  he  is  worthy  of  quotation.  The 
relation  of  Ulster  to  America  and  to  rebellion 
and  its  whole  history  he  slipped  into  one  para- 
graph : 

For  a  long  time  the  notion  of  a  Protestant  Republic  in  Ire- 
land had  prevailed  among  the  sturdy  spawn  of  the  old  Cov- 
enant in  the  North,  dreamily  rather  than  in  expressed  intent. 
The  Presbyterian  religion,  the  memories  of  Scotch  strife,  the 
independent  enterprise  which  impelled  the  settlers  to  Down 
and  Antrim  two  centuries  before,  and  won  for  them  by  their 
right  arms  broad  lands  and  walled  towns  by  the  sea,  continued 
to  guide  and  influence  the  Northernmen.  Since  they  held 
Ulster  against  James,  the  philosophy  of  Locke  filtered  through 
Molyneux  and  Lucas  and  every  orator  and  writer  of  that  whole 
century  reminded  them  of  the  liberty  for  which  they  had 
fought  and  which  they  had  not.  The  struggle  in  America  re- 
called the  old  dream  of  the  Protestant  Republic.  The  aris- 
tocracy driven  into  the  combat  aided  the  Ulster  Presbyterians, 
mitil  by  finesse  and  fine  talk  and  fanfaronade  they  got  Ireland 
into  their  hands  constitutionally.     Then  liberty  was  cushioned. 

In  a  famous  passage  Mitchel  ridiculed  the 
TJlstermen  for  the  manner  in  which  they  had 


28  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

allowed  themselves  to  be  sidetracked  from 
their  old  ideals  of  liberty  into  religious  an- 
tipathy: 

How  much  of  the  Hnen  do  you,  who  weave  it,  get  to  wear? 
How  much  of  the  corn  do  you,  who  sow  and  reap  it,  get  to 
eat?  Where  does  it  go?  Who  eats  and  wears  what  you 
make?  Ah  I  perhaps  it  is  the  Pope  of  Rome  who  swindles 
you  in  this  fashion?  The  Pope  we  know  is  the  Man  of  Sin 
and  the  Mystery  of  Iniquity  and  all  that,  but  he  brings  no 
ejectments  in  Ireland ! 

Against  the  strong  and  the  oppressor  Mitch- 
el's  fearless  pen  was  wielded  in  the  day  of  Ire- 
land's greatest  need  and  when  her  voice  was 
hushed  his  rose  in  crescendo  on  her  behalf. 
Carlyle  wrote  few  passages  so  telling  as  this 
attack  on  the  viceregal  festivities: 

In  the  hght  of  that  mock  throne  on  the  hill  over  the  LiflFey 
there  vibrate  now  all  the  dizened  atomies  of  happy  Ireland. 
GHttering  Captains,  silvered  Lieutenants,  epauletted  puppy- 
ism in  every  grade  and  phase  and  fashion,  wigged  debasement 
fresh  from  a  public  hanging  and  gowned  simony  flock  around 
delighted  at  "the  flourishing  condition  of  the  state."  No 
whisper  of  death,  no  shadow  of  desolation  breaks  over  the 
crowd  .  .  .  and  so  begins  a  third  year  of  uninterrupted 
famine. 

Nevertheless  he  never  allowed  himself  to  lose 
sight  of  the  proper  relations  which  should  sub- 
sist between  England  and  Ireland  under  proper 


CENTENARY  OF  JOHN  MITCHEL    29 

conditions.  Crying  off  all  hatred  between  the 
working  people  of  the  two  countries,  he  sug- 
gested with  profound  political  philosophy: 

Alreadj^  the  two  long-slumbering  nations  have  recognised 
each  other  and  seen  where  their  help  lies.  Why  may  not  an 
alliance  be  then  and  there  struck,  strictly  defining  our  common 
purposes  and  pointing  out  where  our  roads  diverge  and  at  what 
point  the  British  and  Irish  nations  are  to  wend  their  several 
roads,  parting  in  peace,  if  it  be  possible,  and  fulfil  their  own 
destinies  in  the  coming  ages. 

"If  it  be  possible"  has  become  not  only  a 
local  but  an  international  question  to-day.  It 
was  the  testament  Mitchel  left  with  Ireland, 
for  after  his  escape  from  penalism  he  was  hence- 
forth to  be  absorbed  in  the  wider  problems  of 
the  world.  As  he  drew  near  to  the  coasts  of 
free  America,  rumours  of  wars  involving  Eng- 
land with  Russia  reached  him,  and  he  wrote: 

"Czar,  I  bless  thee,  I  kiss  the  hem  of  thy 
garment,  I  drink  to  thy  health  and  longevity. 
Give  us  war  in  our  time,  O  Lord  !"  They  were 
strange  words  for  a  Republican  preparing  for 
American  citizenship  to  utter,  but  Mitchel  was 
an  Irish  Republican  !  His  petition  for  war  was 
fulfilled  and  two  of  his  sons  fell  in  the  cause  of 
the  Confederacy.  He  could  not  help  being  on 
the  losing  side.  After  the  Civil  War  he  took 
up  the  cause  of  France  as  fiercely  as  he  had 


30  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

upheld  that  of  Ireland  and  who  of  his  old  ene- 
mies would  hold  him  wrong  to-day?  From 
New  York  in  the  Irish  Citizen  he  sounded  the 
top  note  of  anger  and  warning  in  1870 : 

We  take  part  instantly,  frankly  and  zealously  for  France. 
France  has  here  the  just  cause.  Everyone  who  has  read  the 
history  of  the  false  House  of  HohenzoUern,  whether  in  the 
pages  of  their  partisan  Carlyle  or  anywhere  else,  must  have 
got  an  idea  of  the  insatiable  ambition  and  utterly  desperate 
treachery  of  that  royal  house.  No  family  of  professional  bur- 
glars, the  burglar  father  training  up  the  burglar  son,  has  ever 
been  so  unrelentingly  bent  upon  living  on  the  plunder  of  the 
others,  and  coming  by  that  plunder  through  all  possible  and 
conceivable  lies,  frauds  and  violence  as  this  brood  of  Hohen- 
zoUern. 

As  far  back  as  1866  he  had  foreseen  and 
accurately  defined  the  idea  of  Pan-Germanism: 
"The  idea  that  the  Teutonic  nationality  is  to 
be  unified  and  bound  together  in  one  mighty 
mass  so  as  to  become  predominant  and  irresis- 
tible in  Europe.'* 

The  statesmen  of  Anglo-Saxondom  would 
have  saved  themselves  a  great  deal  of  trouble 
if  they  had  studied  Mitchel's  writings  in  those 
far-off  days.  It  was  not  any  Celtic  seer  ship 
so  much  as  downright  Republican  rage  which 
led  him  to  proclaim  in  1870: 

The  Prussian  policy  is  to  prepare  very  actively  in  secret 
for  some  unjustifiable  aggression,  to  affect  friendship  till  the 


CENTENARY  OF  JOHN  MITCHEL    31 

last  moment,  to  employ  military  and  engineering  spies  on  an 
immense  scale,  to  affect  innocence  and  unconsciousness,  if 
taxed  with  these  tricks  and  at  last  when  the  moment  has 
arrived,  to  burst  in  with  overwhelming  force. 

It  was  nearly  iSfty  years  later  before  the  rest 
of  the  English-speaking  world  began  very  sol- 
emnly to  discover  and  disinter  the  Prussian 
policy  as  a  sudden  and  woful  plot  against  man- 
kind. How  brilliant  Mitchel  could  be  in  his 
political  diagnosis  is  shown  in  the  most  ac- 
curate prediction  perhaps  ever  made.  In  the 
Irish  Citizen  for  October  1,  1870,  he  wrote: 

Prussia  cannot  be  England's  friend.  Prussia  has  her  own 
aspirations  and  ambitions.  One  of  them  is  to  be  a  great  mari- 
time power,  or  rather  the  great  maritime  power  of  Europe,  and 
nothing  in  the  future  can  be  more  sure  than  that  Prussia,  if 
successful  finally  in  this  struggle  with  France  will  take  Bel- 
gium and  threaten  from  Antwerp  the  mouth  of  the  Thames. 

But  neither  in  his  own  country  or  in  any 
other  country  was  John  Mitchel  reckoned  a 
prophet.  Patriot  and  visionary  ?  Yes.  But 
how  clear-sighted  he  was  he  could  not  have 
known  himself. 

In  America  he  planted  the  philosophy  of 
Fenianism,  which  sprang  up  to  distort  and 
occasionally  convulse  Anglo-American  relations 
until  the  approach  of  home  rule  induced  the 
dawn  of  constitutionalism  and  the  dream  of 


32  THE   IRISH  ISSUE 

reconciliation,  both  of  which  he  had  no  less 
foreseen.  Having  sowed  the  dragon's  teeth  for 
England  in  the  New  World  he  returned  to  take 
his  rest  in  Ireland,  "under  the  globe  of  silver 
that  hangs  between  the  branches  of  the  laurels 
in  Dromolane."  He  could  be  indifferent  to  his 
exclusion  from  the  House  of  Commons,  even 
though  his  wildest  guess  into  the  future  would 
hardly  have  revealed  to  him  the  sight  of  his 
grandson  accepting  the  amende  honorable  from 
a  suppliant  prime  minister  of  England  on  the 
steps  of  the  City  Hall  of  New  York ! 


Ill 

THE   MEMORY  OF  PARNELL 

It  is  now  a  quarter  of  a  century  since  Parnell 
died.  During  the  nineteenth  century  he  was 
the  most  meteoric  figure  in  Irish  Hfe,  though  he 
had  nothing  meteoric  in  himself  except  a  cer- 
tain stoniness.  But  if  there  are  men  of  des- 
tiny, Parnell  was  of  them.  Cold,  purposeful, 
unrelenting,  distrustful,  fatalistic,  he  was  born 
at  the  time  of  the  great  famine,  in  Ireland's 
hour  of  fate,  and  he  perished  in  his  own. 

Parnell  for  about  ten  years  w^as  the  history 
of  Ireland.  He  was  neither  a  Celt  nor  an  ora- 
tor nor  a  Catholic.  Like  Dean  Swift,  he  was 
an  Anglo-Irishman  driven  by  his  savage  indig- 
nation into  revolt.  He  was  brought  up  in  the 
semi-feudal  position  of  the  class  to  whom  it 
was  a  duty  rather  to  spend  than  defend  the 
resources  of  their  country.  At  the  University 
of  Cambridge  he  imbibed  an  interest  in  higher 
mathematics  and  a  certain  ability  for  cricket. 
Unfortunately  he  was  rusticated  as  the  result 
of  a  street  row.     Tradition  used  to  point  out  a 

33 


34  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

spot  in  Station  Road,  where  the  Saxon  insulted 
him  as  he  brooded  over  the  wrongs  of  Ireland 
and  was  rolled  in  the  dust.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  he  had  not  begun  to  think  as  yet  of  any 
rights  or  wrongs  in  connection  with  Ireland. 
He  was  too  proud  to  return  to  residence  and 
forfeited  his  chance  of  a  degree.  In  virtue  of 
his  squiredom  he  entered  the  militia  and  be- 
came high  sheriff  of  Wicklow. 

He  only  became  a  Nationalist  quietly  and 
deliberately.  When  three  honest  conspirators 
were  hung  in  Manchester  for  the  accidental 
death  of  a  policeman,  the  determination  was 
precipitated  in  his  mind.  In  an  hour  pregnant 
with  issue  he  chose  the  up-hill  task  of  marshal- 
ling the  broken  forces  of  Irish  democracy 
against  his  own  all-powerful  class.  He  was 
unsuccessful  when  he  stood  for  Dublin,  but  was 
elected  for  Meath.  His  election  followed  a 
curious  succession.  John  Mitchel  had  returned 
home  to  take  his  seat  in  Parliament,  but  was 
disqualified  as  a  felon  and  died  soon  after. 
John  Martin  caught  cold  at  his  funeral  and 
died,  too.     Parnell  succeeded  to  his  seat. 

Parnell  entered  Parliament  with  no  reputa- 
tion save  for  good  looks  and  inefficient  speech. 
The  Parliament  that  he  entered  was  still  a 
little-changed  pillar  of  the  Constitution,  as  far 


THE  MEMORY  OF  PARNELL      35 

as  Ireland  was  concerned  a  buttress  of  con- 
servative opinion,  the  shrine  of  precedent  and 
procedure.  Only  a  moneyed  or  aristocratic 
class  could  breathe  its  atmosphere.  The  House 
was  divided  into  two  traditional  groups  but  not 
against  herself.  If  an  uncertain  amount  of 
Irish  insurgency  simmered  above  the  surface 
at  times,  both  parties  combined  under  an  un- 
written law  for  its  suppression.  It  was  before 
the  day  of  Labour  or  of  real  Liberal,  when 
Whig  and  Tory  played  the  game  after  their 
own  heart.  Under  a  fixed  code  of  banter  and 
debate  the  time-honoured  ball  of  business  was 
kept  rolling  across  the  gangways.  At  election 
times  they  merely  relieved  each  other  of  the 
combined  sweet  and  sweat  of  office.  Democ- 
racy was  unknown. 

The  Irish  secretary  at  the  time  was  James 
Lowther,  who  had  no  qualification  except  a 
knowledge  of  horse-racing.  His  appointment 
was  laid  to  Disraeli's  cynical  humour.  Low- 
ther once  told  a  deputation  of  peasants  that 
they  needed  grass-seed  rather  than  potato- 
seed,  like  the  French  minister  who  recom- 
mended the  poor  to  eat  grass.  In  each  case  a 
revolution  was  under  way. 

Ireland  was  largely  represented  by  Whigs, 
a  perennial  type  of  politicians  who  combine  the 


36  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

respectable  with  the  despicable.  The  type, 
which  from  all  time  has  been  intelligent  enough 
to  realise  what  was  just,  but  small-minded 
enough  to  prefer  what  was  profitable.  It  was 
said  with  a  bitter  truth  that  Pilate  was  a  \Miig. 
But  the  Irish  leader  was  a  genuine  and  warm- 
hearted man.  Isaac  Butt  had  sacrificed  a  great 
legal  career  in  order  to  rally  the  country  to  a 
constitutional  policy.  Though  he  had  O'Don- 
nell  blood  and  possessed  "a  Donegal  temper," 
he  was  a  curious  compromise  in  many  ways. 
He  was  a  Protestant  and  yet  he  wore  Catholic 
scapulars.  He  loved  and  reverenced  the  law, 
but  he  loved  and  defended  the  Fenians.  He 
had  been  a  Unionist  orator  in  O'ConnelFs  time, 
but  he  invented  home  rule.  For  some  years 
he  had  marshalled  a  pacific  party  at  West- 
minster, where  every  proposed  amelioration 
fell  between  the  two  dominant  parties  of  tra- 
dition. His  complacent  failure  had  disheart- 
ened the  Irish  and  made  Parnell's  leadership 
the  more  necessary.  Butt  was  the  first  to 
recognise  that  Parnell  would  prove  "an  ugly 
customer  for  the  Saxon." 

By  a  coincidence  the  night  Parnell  took  his 
seat  Mr.  Biggar  endeavoured  to  retard  coercion 
by  speaking  for  four  consecutive  hours.  This 
was  regarded  as  against  all  the  rules  of  the 


THE   MEMORY  OF  PARNELL      37 

game,  but  it  gave  Parnell  an  idea  of  the  policy, 
which  is  called  obstruction  by  those  who  are 
obstructed,  and  the  active  policy  by  those  who 
are  primarily  active.  Biggar  experimented, 
but  Parnell  took  out  its  patent.  The  rules 
were  simple  and  four  in  number.  To  work  in 
government  time.  To  aid  anybody  to  spend 
government  time.  Whenever  a  bill  was 
sighted  to  block  it.  Whenever  a  raw  was 
noticed  to  rub  it. 

Parnell  settled  down  to  play  the  gentlemanly 
game  of  politics  remorselessly.  The  well-bred 
House  stared  and  protested  in  vain  as  two  men 
set  out  to  thwart  and  menace  the  business  of 
six  hundred.  If  the  government  was  unwilling 
to  attend  to  Irish  business,  the  Irish  members 
paid  unwelcome  attention  to  government  busi- 
ness. 

Parnell  faced  the  English  like  an  Englishman. 
He  showed  himself  more  of  a  tenacious  British 
bulldog  than  a  long-winded  Irish  wolfhound. 
He  outdid  them  in  political  cynicism.  He 
outbowed  them  in  frigid  courtesy.  He  knew 
exactly  how  far  he  could  go.  He  could  gauge 
the  temper  of  the  House  to  the  clause  and  to 
the  minute.  His  band  increased  from  five  to 
thirty.  Their  rough  apprenticeship  was  in- 
spired by  his  master-personality. 


38  THE   IRISH   ISSUE 

During  bitter  years  they  fought  the  battle 
of  democracy  against  friend  and  foe.  They 
had  no  pity  for  the  well-meaning  Butt,  whom 
they  turned  down  broken-hearted  to  his  grave. 
They  spoke  in  season  and  out  of  season.  They 
spoke  neither  in  vanity  nor  in  vain,  not  to  elicit 
applause  but  deliberately  to  rouse  indignation. 
Parnell  instructed  them  to  learn  the  laws  of  the 
House  by  breaking  them.  To  the  science  of 
perpetual  "  motion "  they  added  that  of  un- 
ceasing speech.  They  learnt  to  resist  equally 
the  dictates  of  fear  and  bullying,  the  advances 
of  flattery  and  blandishment.  Day  and  night 
they  relieved  each  other  on  the  political  fence, 
where  neither  party  could  touch  them.  At  last 
the  House  surrendered  and  the  Irish  question 
became  a  serious  legacy  from  one  ministry  to 
another.  Hitherto  the  Irish  attack  had  been 
innocuous  and  the  Irish  member  went  clad 
with  derision.  Parneirs  policy  was  "not  rec- 
onciliation but  retaliation,"  and  Parnellism 
began  to  loom  as  a  force  requiring  calculation 
in  political  arithmetic.  In  one  stormy  decade 
he  had  faced  the  system  of  genteel  fraud  and 
collusion  as  practised  under  the  cloak  of  the 
Mother  of  Parliaments  and  reduced  her  to  the 
plainer-speaking  and  more  democratic  creature 
of  to-day.     Through  the  breach  which  Parnell 


THE   MEMORY  OF  PARNELL      39 

hewed  in  her  walls  entered  not  only  the  Irish 
party  but  later  the  English  Labour  party  as 
well. 

Parnell  did  not  spare  his  followers  or  himself. 
Under  the  strife  and  strain  his  character  began 
to  harden  to  a  texture  of  steel  and  marble,  but, 
like  steel  or  marble  in  their  plastic  shape,  he 
had  to  pass  through  an  ordeal  as  fierce  as  fire. 
Justin  McCarthy  describes  one  of  his  appear- 
ances in  later  years: 

Appeared  is  a  fitting  word  to  use,  for  no  apparition,  no 
ghost  from  the  grave  ever  looked  more  startling  among  living 
men,  the  ghastly  face,  the  wasted  form,  the  glassy  eyes  gleam- 
ing, looking  like  the  terrible  corpse-candles  of  Welsh  supersti- 
tion.   If  ever  death  shone  in  a  face  it  shone  in  that. 

What  were  his  means  and  ways  .^  His  state- 
craft consisted  in  fitting  the  axe  head  of  physi- 
cal force  to  the  handle  of  moral  suasion  after 
each  policy  had  apparently  failed  separately. 
Out  of  both  he  forged  his  weapon.  In  West- 
minster he  was  a  political  reformer,  but  the 
eyes  and  sometimes  the  sympathy  of  the 
American  Clan-na-Gael  were  with  him.  Dav- 
itt  says  the  extremists  in  Ireland  opposed  him, 
while  those  in  America  secretly  favoured  him. 
How  dangerous  a  game  he  played  was  shown 
in  the  fact  that  after  the  Phoenix  Park  mur- 


40  THE   IRISH  ISSUE 

ders,  which  he  denounced,  he  needed  poHce 
protection  from  both  Enghsh  and  Irish  parti- 
sans. His  game  was  deep  but  not  desperate. 
He  played  pohtics  as  he  played  chess.  Queen, 
bishops,  castle,  pawns  were  all  on  his  Irish 
board. 

The  secret  of  his  rule  was  never  clear.  His 
devoted  followers  spoke  of  his  iron  hand,  but 
few  of  them  had  ever  felt  it.  He  avoided  rather 
than  punished  them.  He  ruled  by  mystery 
more  than  by  mastery.  He  fascinated  rather 
than  forced  the  Celtic  people  into  regarding 
him  as  their  indispensable  leader.  In  one  army 
he  arrayed  priest  and  peasant,  dynamiter  and 
devotee.  His  rank  and  file  contained  both 
Fenian  and  O'Connellite.  He  knew  exactly 
how  far  he  could  go.  Betw^een  arms  and  sub- 
mission there  seemed  to  be  no  alternative.  An 
unwise  agitator  would  have  appealed  to  vio- 
lence to  back  his  arguments.  Parnell  forbade 
violence  but  also  any  dealing  with  agent  or 
bailiff.  He  added  the  word  boycotting  to 
European  dictionaries.  By  a  master-stroke  he 
revived  mediaeval  excommunication  to  serve 
modern  democracy.  He  defied  the  law  by 
keeping  within  the  letter  and  outraging  the 
spirit. 

He   soon   found   himself  face   to   face   with 


THE  MEMORY  OF  PARNELL      41 

Gladstone  and  Forster,  Gladstone's  chief  sec- 
retary. Gladstone  described  Parnell  as  stand- 
ing between  the  living  and  the  dead,  "not  like 
Aaron  to  stay  but  to  spread  the  plague."  Par- 
nell replied,  calling  Gladstone  "a  masquerad- 
ing knight-errant,  ready  to  champion  the  rights 
of  every  nation  but  Ireland."  Gladstone  had 
no  better  repartee  except  to  send  Parnell  to 
gaol.  Forster  received  from  Parnell  the  undy- 
ing epithet  of  "Buckshot,"  which  he  had  or- 
dered the  troops  to  use  instead  of  bullets  when 
firing  on  the  unarmed  crowd.  Forster  was  a 
Quaker  philanthropist  let  loose  on  Ireland,  who 
believed  that  to  spare  coercion  was  to  spoil  the 
nation.  Coercion  not  unnaturally  produced 
the  very  crimes  it  was  expected  to  suppress. 
Parnell  was  placed  in  Kilmainham  without 
trial.  When  his  strong  hand  was  removed,  the 
chariot  of  Ireland  was  dragged  under  the  storm. 
The  countryside  hailed  outrages  and  the  land- 
lords replied  with  a  rain  of  evictions.  Out  of 
the  chaos  Parnell  managed  to  wrest  the  Kil- 
mainham Treaty.  He  was  willing  to  slow 
down  the  agitation,  but  his  price  was  the  aban- 
donment of  Forster  and  of  the  rents  in  arrears. 
It  was  a  compromise  which  the  revolutionists 
regretted,  but  Parnell  was  always  ready  to 
accept  a  step  to  constitutionalism.     He  told 


42  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

Davitt  that  prison  solitude  would  drive  him 
mad.  He  had  felt  strong  enough  to  negotiate 
the  treaty  without  consulting  any  others.  He 
knew,  much  as  he  disliked  prison,  that  it  con- 
firmed power  extraordinary  upon  him.  In  his 
pregnant  way  he  remarked  that  his  release  lay 
with  the  people,  and  by  this  time  they  had 
learnt  to  take  him  at  his  word.  They  made 
the  rule  of  the  country  impossible  and  the  gov- 
ernment had  no  choice.  Had  Parnell  remained 
in  prison,  their  surrender  would  have  been 
even  more  complete,  but  Parnell  did  not  enjoy 
captivity  as  his  followers  did.  He  felt  it  as 
an  affront  to  his  dignity.  He  never  forgave 
Gladstone,  whom  he  privately  called  the  Grand 
Old  Spider. 

He  left  Kilmainham  with  the  Irish  settle- 
ment at  hand,  but  in  one  insane  hour  all  was 
undone.  Forster's  successor  arrived  as  an 
emissary  of  peace  and  was  murdered  by  the 
Invincibles  in  the  Phoenix  Park.  The  killing 
of  Cavendish  was  accidental  to  the  stabbing  of 
the  Under-Secretary  Burke.  In  the  political 
sense  Parnell  was  not  less  stabbed  in  the  back. 
He  made  the  offer  to  Gladstone  to  abandon 
politics  entirely  rather  than  impede  the  com- 
ing reforms. 

The  tragedy  changed  Irish  history.     Though 


THE   MEMORY  OF  PxlRNELL      43 

many  details  have  never  been  known,  there 
was  a  grim  sequence.  Years  previously,  when 
John  Boyle  O'Reilly  was  shipped  as  a  convict, 
word  was  passed  to  him  on  the  ship  that  Carey 
had  done  for  the  informer  who  had  betrayed 
him.  Carey  in  turn  became  the  informer 
against  the  Phoenix  Park  murderers.  But 
when  he  took  ship  with  a  free  pardon  he  was 
shot  by  a  fellow  passenger  on  reaching  South 
Africa.  But  there  was  nobility  amid  the 
horror.  One  of  those  executed  refused  to  for- 
give Carey  before  he  died,  until  he  heard  that 
the  sister  of  charity  who  had  tended  him  and 
entreated  him  to  do  so  was  a  cousin  of  Burke, 
whom  he  had  murdered.  Very  sublime  was 
the  utterance  of  Lord  Frederic  Cavendish's 
widow  to  Gladstone:  "You  did  well  to  send 
him."  Though  Gladstone  was  one  day  to 
drive  Parnell  out  of  public  life,  he  behaved 
with  magnanimity  this  time  in  bidding  him 
stay. 

As  a  result  of  the  crimes  Forster  enjoyed  a 
keen  revenge,  for  he  was  able  to  show  in  his 
speech  before  the  House  that  his  policy  had 
some  reason.  Under  the  insinuations  of  com- 
plicity Parnell  sat  unmoved.  Never  had  he 
appeared  more  incomprehensible  to  English- 
men, more  magnificent  to  his  subjects.     Ste- 


44  THE   IRISH   ISSUE 

venson  has  described  in  The  Dynamiter  how 
**Parnell  sits  before  posterity  silent,  Mr.  For- 
ster's  appeal  echoing  down  the  centuries." 
Posterity,  however,  has  learnt  the  reason  of 
that  silence  more  eloquent  than  Forster's  phil- 
ippic. It  was  the  silence  of  contempt.  When 
later  he  did  speak,  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 
and  Cardinal  Manning  in  the  gallery,  it  was 
to  refuse  to  consider  himself  amenable  to  Eng- 
lish opinion.  To  the  Irish  only  would  he 
answer  and  by  them  he  was  prepared  to  stand 
or  fall. 

In  Ireland  he  was  justified  enthusiastically 
and  he  began  to  be  known  as  the  '^uncrowned 
king,"  a  title  which  he  strangely  shares  with 
Confucius.  Never  was  a  politician  so  feared  or 
hated,  or  watched  by  more  vigilant  enemies. 
Vested  interests,  cabinets,  newspapers,  all  the 
powers  of  this  world  conspired  to  defeat  this 
solitary  man,  who  continued  his  way  extorting 
the  liberties  of  Ireland.  Only  one  power  there 
was  in  Ireland  greater  than  his  or  able  to  crush 
him,  but  that  was  no  power  temporal. 

Supporters  and  lieutenants  he  had  in  legion, 
but  he  had  realised  early  that  it  is  sometimes 
easier  to  meet  one's  enemies  than  to  escape 
from  one's  friends.  He  had  also  discovered 
that  a  public  man  need  not  have  enemies  un- 


THE   MEMORY  OF  PARNELL      45 

less  he  deigns  to  notice  them.  Bosom  friends 
he  had  none.  His  followers  found  themselves 
subject  to  an  influence  rather  than  to  a  disci- 
pline. He  treated  them  with  such  aloofness 
that  at  times  the  Irish  ''whips"  had  to  dis- 
cover from  others  when  he  intended  to  speak. 
He  often  failed  to  take  part  in  divisions  to 
which  members  had  been  fetched  by  telegram 
in  his  name.  For  the  first  time  the  govern- 
ment found  themselves  dealing  with  a  foreign 
power.  He  always  bargained  on  the  supposi- 
tion that  he  had  nothing  to  give  and  everything 
to  gain.  Several  ministers  grew  old  and  grey 
doing  business  on  such  one-sided  terms.  Friend 
and  foe  he  confronted  with  a  pliant  impene- 
trability. In  dealing  with  a  crisis,  he  shared 
with  all  successful  generals  and  firemen  the 
gift  of  instant  realisation.  He  was  fortunate 
in  being  enrolled  under  no  party  tradition, 
least  of  all  his  own.  He  allowed  his  party  to 
discuss  a  pohtical  matter,  but  he  would  sud- 
denly appear  and  make  a  decisive  utterance. 
He  used  to  say  Washington  would  be  a  highly 
unpopular  leader  in  Ireland. 

His  style  of  speech  in  the  House  was  terse 
and  pointed.  Gladstone  said  he  was  able  to 
do  what  all  speakers  are  supposed  to,  but  which 
few  really  do,   say  what  they  mean   to  say. 


46  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

He  also  had  the  rarer  power,  which  was  not 
among  Gladstone's  gifts,  of  saying  as  little  as 
he  started  out  to  say.  Concentration  stood 
him  in  the  place  of  oratory.  He  wasted  no 
time  on  perorations.  His  campaign  statements 
combined  the  brevity  of  cablegrams  with  some 
of  the  fire  of  a  minor  prophet.  His  statement 
that  "no  man  has  the  right  to  set  the  bounds 
of  a  nation"  was  one  of  these,  and  it  is  written 
in  bronze  across  his  granite  statue  in  Dublin 
to-day. 

As  a  free-lance  he  would  have  proved  for- 
midable, but  as  the  leader  of  eighty  he  was  a 
deciding  factor.  The  new  franchise  had  given 
him  the  entry  into  Ulster.  With  the  balance 
of  power  in  his  hand  he  tempted  the  irreproach- 
able Tories  and  they  fell,  but  it  was  the  Lib- 
erals who  fell  from  office.  If  he  put  his  ene- 
mies into  power,  it  was  for  the  same  reason 
that  a  poor  man  stuffs  a  broken  window  with 
rags,  not  so  much  to  let  the  light  in  as  to  keep 
the  cold  out.  The  Tories  being  only  human 
accepted  the  new  situation.  There  is  a  pro- 
phetic passage  in  Swift's  Journal  concerning 
Thomas  Parnell,  his  poetic  ancestor,  which  is 
worth  quoting:  ''Oxford  passed  through  the 
crowd  of  his  suitors  to  welcome  Parnell  when 
he  deserted  the  Whigs."     Tory  leaders  did  the 


THE  MEMORY  OF  PARNELL      47 

same  in  the  nineteenth  century.  SaHsbury 
made  an  academic  defence  of  boycotting. 
Churchill  denounced  the  application  of  coer- 
cion to  a  sensitive  people.  Lord  Carnarvon 
hinted  at  home  rule  during  an  interview  with 
Parnell  in  an  empty  house. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Liberals  awaited  the 
first  chance  to  make  terms,  but  Parnell  insisted 
on  an  unconditional  surrender  to  home  rule. 
There  was  a  grim  pause  and  Gladstone,  after 
due  deliberation,  announced  himself  a  Home 
Ruler.  The  two  mightiest  swordsmen  in  the 
parliamentary  duel  had  met.  Parnell  did  not 
possess  the  eloquence  or  learning  of  the  other, 
but  he  had  weapons  of  his  own.  His  dogged 
will  power  had  made  the  Tories  set  the  pace 
for  Gladstone.  In  relation  to  Gladstone  he 
had  repeated  St.  Paul's  achievement  and  con- 
verted his  gaoler.  It  was  Parnell' s  supreme 
success  in  politics.  He  had  made  home  rule 
inevitable. 

The  first  Home  Rule  Bill  was  defeated.  The 
Tories  returned  to  office  and  celebrated  the 
Queen's  Jubilee  with  a  Coercion  Act  in  Ireland. 
Led  away  by  the  general  exuberance.  The 
Times  published  letters  purporting  to  connect 
Parnell  with  the  Phoenix  Park  murders.  Par- 
nell declined  to  prosecute,  for  he  did  not  care 


48  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

to  trust  his  reputation  to  an  English  jury.  He 
despised  the  press  but  the  press  did  not  despise 
him.  With  a  forged  letter  they  had  stabbed 
the  man  they  feared. 

A  royal  commission  was  appointed  by  his 
political  enemies,  who  sifted  the  lives  of  the 
Irish  members  as  well  as  the  whole  Irish  move- 
ment as  though  in  the  vice  of  an  Inquisition. 
But  the  plot  recoiled,  for  the  letters  proved 
forgeries  and  the  forger  committed  suicide. 
Before  the  acquitting  board  of  judges  Parnell 
sat  as  unmoved  indeed  as  though  they  had 
found  him  guilty !  To  their  verdict  he  was  so 
indifferent  that  it  was  with  difficulty  that  his 
counsel  could  induce  him  always  to  attend. 
But  the  political  and  artistic  world  flocked  to 
witness  the  drama.  Some  sketches  from  Miss 
Wellord's  Memories  are  worth  quoting.  Of 
Piggott  the  forger: 

Shall  I  ever  forget  his  face?  Despair,  grim,  awful  despair 
had  settled  down  upon  it.  A  livid  hue  had  overspread  every 
feature,  the  veins  on  the  forehead  were  swollen  almost  to 
bursting  and  the  nostrils  rose  and  fell  with  every  respiration. 
When  he  tried  to  speak  he  could  with  difficulty  articulate. 

Mr.  Parnell  had  a  wonderful  face,  the  face  of  a  fanatic. 
There  was  a  dreamy  beauty,  pathos,  mingled  strength  and 
weakness  in  it,  there  was  also  an  underlying  persuasive  melan- 
choly.    And  he  looked  ill.     His  very  tall  spare  form  drooped, 


THE   MEMORY  OF   PARNELL      49 

while  nervous  agitation  was  visible  in  a  variety  of  spasmodic 
movements,  indeed  it  was  so  obvious  that  he  was  suffering 
physically  as  well  as  mentally  that  the  presiding  judge  more 
than  once  said  kindly,  "If  you  are  fatigued,  Mr.  Parnell,  pray 
be  seated."  "I  thank  your  Lordship,  not  at  all,"  replied  Par- 
nell, but  he  had  to  grasp  the  rail  in  front  to  steady  himself. 


He  took  no  favours. 

Another  interested  witness  was  Burne- Jones. 
As  the  sunhght  for  a  while  fell  on  Parnell' s 
haggard  and  bearded  face  he  could  not  help 
noting  to  Meredith  that  he  had  seen  a  wonder- 
ful model  for  the  judgment  scene  enacted  once 
before  Pontius  Pilate. 

The  summing  of  the  commission  was  made 
as  condemnatory  of  the  Irish  party  as  possible, 
but  the  main  accusation  against  Parnell  was 
held  false.  It  was  as  great  a  triumph  as  is  per- 
mitted to  a  statesman  once  in  his  lifetime. 
From  Ireland  arose  but  one  cry,  Vivat  Rex! 
When  he  entered  the  House  of  Commons,  all 
parties  rose  from  their  seats  to  atone  for  the 
terrible  wrong  that  had  been  done  to  him,  all 
except  Lord  Hartington,  the  brother  of  the 
victim  of  the  Phoenix  Park.  It  was  an  amaz- 
ing scene,  but  Parnell  made  no  acknowledg- 
ment of  the  ovation.  Sardonically  he  told  Mr. 
Harrington  that  he  knew  they  would  have  pre- 
ferred to  find  him  guilty. 


50  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

It  was  ParnelFs  apotheosis.  Up  to  that 
time  none  had  done  battle  with  him  and  come 
away  unscathed.  From  behind  his  prison  bars 
he  had  broken  Forster.  He  had  converted 
Gladstone.  He  had  pinned  Carnarvon.  The 
Times  lay  in  rags.  The  Tories  could  only 
groan  in  impotence.  Every  political  party  ac- 
knowledged him  as  a  master.  Even  so,  unsus- 
pected ruin  lay  in  his  path.  Who  could  have 
foreseen  the  utter  and  blighting  calamity  which 
awaited  him  so  instantly.^ 

In  a  grey  hour  for  Ireland  Captain  O'Shea 
instituted  a  divorce  suit,  naming  Parnell. 
Why  it  was  brought  then  has  never  been  ex- 
plained, for  Parnell  and  O'Shea  had  had  the 
matter  out  some  years  before.  O'Shea  had 
not  been  ignorant,  but  he  had  accepted  the 
Galway  seat  from  Parnell  in  the  teeth  of  the 
Irish  party.  Sir  George  Lewis  pressed  him  to 
defend  the  suit,  as  he  believed  collusion  could 
easily  be  proved.  Parnell  assented,  but  re- 
turned the  next  day  to  say  that  his  first  duty 
must  be  to  the  lady.  There  was  no  legal  de- 
fence, though  there  might  have  been.  Of 
moral  defence  there  could  be  none.  Balzac 
says  that  love  is  the  fool's  one  chance  to  rise 
superior  to  himself.  Unfortunately  it  is  also 
the  great  man's  only  loophole  to  lower  himself. 


THE  MEMORY  OF  PARNELL      51 

Parnell's  morals  were  irregular,  but  not  sen- 
sual. An  unhappy,  lonely  man,  he  found  a 
companion  and  a  mother  rather  than  a  mistress 
in  Mrs.  O'Shea.  She  became  as  essential  to 
his  balance  as  to  his  happiness.  Chivalry 
rather  than  passion  dictated  his  course  during 
and  after  the  divorce  case. 

The  sequel  was  the  greatest  split  that  has 
ever  divided  even  an  easily  divided  nation. 
For  a  while  his  party  bade  him  hold  the  wheel. 
But  later  they  echoed  Gladstone's  virtual  let- 
ter of  deposition  and  thrust  him  from  the  lead- 
ership. Then  it  was  that  he  defied  them,  not 
so  much  out  of  mortified  pride  as  because  his 
party  had  accepted  an  English  word  of  com- 
mand. He  became  a  giant  at  bay.  The  com- 
mission had  revealed  every  word  and  act  of 
his  public  life.  In  the  hateful  campaign  which 
followed  the  divorce  every  scrap  of  his  private 
life,  every  shadow  of  love  that  he  had  ever 
known  was  pitilessly  nailed  to  a  thousand 
platforms.  The  Irish  electorate  staggered  into 
suicidal  conflict,  dividing  towns,  parishes,  and 
families.  The  party  which  Parnell  had  created 
tried  their  creator.  The  trial  of  Charles  Stew- 
art Parnell  by  his  subjects  in  Westminster  was 
the  most  dramatic  since  King  Charles  was  tried 
there  by  his.     In  each  case  the  sentence  was 


52  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

one  of  deposition  and  eventually  of  death. 
Parnell  was  offered  good  terms  but  he  refused 
them.  Word  for  his  destruction  was  first 
whispered  from  England,  but  it  was  his  fellow 
countrymen  who  carried  it  out. 

It  is  idle  to  pretend  that  Gladstone  was  un- 
willing to  see  ParnelFs  fall,  as  soon  as  he  real- 
ised that  his  own  politics  were  liable  to  be 
compromised.  What  he  never  expected  was 
that  he  would  be  overthrown  by  his  own  party. 
It  must  have  soothed  many  an  old  sore  of  his 
to  find  he  had  dictated  Parnell's  doom.  Swin- 
burne had  once  sung,  "Parnell  spurs  his  Glad- 
stone well,"  and  doubtless  the  old  man  remem- 
bered past  galling.  Parnell  was  girded  with 
his  foes.  All  but  a  handful  of  his  party  for- 
sook him.  The  church  swelled  his  disaster. 
Even  the  students  in  Maynooth  turned  his 
photographs  to  the  wall.  The  parochial  clergy 
followed  Gladstone's  political  lead  better  than 
they  had  followed  the  Pope's.  When  Rome 
had  forbidden  the  tribute  subscribed  in  favour 
of  the  chief  by  a  brief  "Qualecumque  de  Par- 
nellio,"  the  faithful  to  whom  it  was  addressed 
turned  Peter's  pence  for  that  year  into  Par- 
nell's pounds. 

The  church  has  a  long  memory,  and  Par- 
nell's occasional  trips  into  red  radicalism  had 


THE   MEMORY  OF  PARNELL      53 

been  noted.  With  some  of  his  followers  he 
had  voted  for  the  blasphemous  Bradlaugh, 
and  to  please  Dilke  and  Chamberlain  he  had 
used  Irish  votes  to  block  the  body  of  the 
prince  imperial  from  Westminster  Abbey. 
The  clergy  refused  to  condone  a  private  fault 
in  a  public  man.  Criticism  is  unadjustable. 
The  priests  thought  they  were  right  and  Par- 
nell  did  not  think  he  was  wrong.  Had  he  had 
any  knowledge  of  the  old  books  of  Ireland  he 
might  have  remembered  a  destruction  of  roy- 
alty such  as  his,  when  the  Celtic  saints  lay 
Tara  desolate.  As  they  rang  their  bells  and 
chanted  their  curses,  the  unhappy  King  Der- 
mot  cried  out  bitterly: 

Woe  to  him  that  to  the  Clergy  of  the  Churches  sheweth 
fight,  woe  to  him  that  would  contend  with  them,  giving  cut 
for  cut. 

But  he  had  little  knowledge  of  Irish  books 
or  poets.  Even  Moore  he  had  quoted  but 
once,  and  then  wrong. 

Only  in  the  religious  orders  were  any  clerical 
supporters  of  Parnell  to  be  found,  and  they 
gave  their  help  by  stealth.  Ireland  split  into 
warring  factions,  leaving  enough  Parnellites  to 
put  up  a  fierce  but  losing  fight.  Ulster  re- 
mained aloof  and  triumphant,  privately  sym- 


54  THE   IRISH   ISSUE 

pathising  with  ParnelL  When  he  saw  that  his 
star  of  destiny  was  sinking  he  became  careless. 
TraveUing  to  and  fro  between  England  and 
Ireland,  he  fought  election  after  election.  He 
endangered  his  health  and  ate  away  his  heart. 
In  bitterness  he  told  his  deserting  followers  to 
sell  him,  if  they  must,  but  to  sell  him  for  a  price. 
But  angry  Celts  cannot  see  clear  enough  to 
drive  bargains  and  they  sold  him  for  nought. 
The  Scotch  at  least  had  cleared  a  historical 
groat  when  they  sold  their  Charles  Stewart  to 
the  ancestors  of  these  same  Puritans.  In  Octo- 
ber, 1891,  the  month  he  always  associated  with 
his  destiny,  he  returned  to  England  and  died 
in  the  arms  of  the  woman  he  loved.  To  make 
her  his  wife  he  had  laid  down  both  life  and 
kingdom.  The  late  Lord  Morris,  a  grim  old 
Catholic  Unionist,  remarked  that  since  Joan 
of  Arc,  Mrs.  Parnell  was  the  only  woman  who 
had  ever  saved  her  country. 

There  followed  a  gloomy  apotheosis.  A 
faithful  few  brought  back  his  body  across  the 
Irish  Sea.  There  was  a  dramatic  landing  in 
Ireland,  as  mournful  angry  men  tore  the  outer 
casing  of  his  coffin  to  pieces  for  relics.  He  lay 
in  state  in  the  City  Hall  of  Dublin  and  was 
borne  by  an  immense  wailing  crowd  to  the 
Catholic    Valhalla   of    Glasnevin.     They   had 


THE   MEMORY  OF  PARNELL      55 

killed  liim3  but  they  gave  him  a  wonderful 
funeral,  did  the  Irish  people.  Parnell  had 
perished,  to  use  a  phrase  of  the  Irish  mediae val- 
ists,  by  the  "envenomed  spittle  of  men." 

When  it  was  too  late,  it  was  remembered 
that  he  was  irreplaceable.  His  name  became 
a  symbol  and  a  shibboleth,  and  his  statue  by 
St.  Gaudens  was  later  added  to  the  monuments 
of  Dublin.  One  by  one  his  scattered  followers 
came  together  with  the  years  and  recommenced 
the  warfare  in  which  he  had  first  instructed 
them,  and  by  long  weary  roads  came  again 
within  sight  of  the  promised  land,  to  which  his 
sceptreless  hand  still  pointed  from  the  grave. 

ParnelFs  character  has  remained  something 
of  a  paradox.  Though  his  heart  was  finally 
torn  in  twain  its  secrets  were  never  read.  His 
natural  sensitiveness  he  crushed  out  in  order  to 
present  a  harder  front  to  the  foe.  Friend  no 
less  complained  of  his  iciness.  He  could  be 
gracious  to  supporters  and  dependents,  when 
he  wished,  but  his  uneasy  leadership  forbade 
him  to  be  overkind  or  intimate.  In  1885  Jus- 
tin McCarthy  wrote  of  him: 

"I  don't  know  how  it  is,  but  he  has  in  his 
manners  as  a  host  the  sweetness  of  a  woman 
as  well  as  the  strength  of  a  curiously  cold,  self- 
contained  masculine  nature." 


56  THE   IRISH  ISSUE 

And  in  the  following  year:  **One  of  our  men 
complained  to  me  of  his  manner;  said  that  he 
was  growing  terribly  dictatorial.  The  fact  is 
that  Parnell  is  nervously  afraid  of  anything 
being  done  just  now  which  might  give  our 
enemies  the  slightest  chance  of  handle  against 
him,  and  he  is  quite  right." 

He  was  not  Irish  enough  to  be  magnanimous 
like  Butt  on  the  one  hand,  or  treacherous  on 
the  other  like  O'Connell,  but  he  allow^ed  others 
to  sacrifice  themselves  for  him  without  a  word. 
For  some  such  reason  it  was  that  Davitt  com- 
plained he  could  be  mean.  Two  critics  have 
left  severe  criticisms  of  Parnell  from  very 
different  points  of  view — Davitt,  an  agrarian 
revolutionary,  and  F.  Hugh  O'Donnell,  an 
old-fashioned  Catholic  home  ruler.  Both  con- 
demned him  in  character  and  policy  in  the 
most  massive  books  which  have  been  written 
on  the  Irish  movement.  Yet  Parnell  lives  un- 
scathed in  the  memory  of  the  race.  His  love 
for  a  woman  is  pardoned  in  his  hate  for  Eng- 
land. 

His  love  of  animals  was  probably  his  most 
Irish  trait.  He  was  once  seen  to  be  more  con- 
cerned over  the  fate  of  a  dog  running  under  a 
crowd  than  in  the  feelings  of  the  said  crowd. 
Horses  he  generally  preferred  to  men.     He  was 


THE  MEMORY  OF  PARNELL      57 

English  enough  to  be  without  humour.  He 
read  Alice's  Adventures  in  Wonderland  without 
being  amused.  Occasionally  he  could  chaflF  a 
too  serious  follower.  He  used  to  joke  about 
making  Davitt  inspector  of  Irish  prisons  under 
home  rule,  and  the  Fenian  O'Kelly  head  of 
the  Irish  police.  During  the  agonies  of  the 
split  in  his  party  he  could  chaflF  Justin  Mc- 
Carthy on  his  chances  of  succession.  He  af- 
fected mystery  in  all  things,  partly  out  of  the 
necessities  of  his  life  and  partly  to  retain  the 
wonder  of  the  Irish  people.  He  wore  an  ob- 
vious disguise  in  the  London  streets  and  was 
fond  of  disappearing  from  cabs.  His  knowl- 
edge of  the  motives  of  others  was  on  a  par 
with  their  ignorance  of  his.  '*I  wish  I  knew 
what  Parnell's  politics  are,"  said  a  close  fol- 
lower. He  was  described  as  a  conservative  in 
feeling  and  as  a  revolutionary  in  action. 
Cecil  Rhodes  called  him  the  most  reasonable 
and  sensible  man  he  ever  met.  He  led  the 
most  Tory  people  in  Europe  and  in  the  name 
of  democracy  destroyed  the  most  feudal  of 
aristocracies.  His  distrust  of  the  English  was 
total,  but  he  did  not  always  trust  the  Irish 
either.  A  superstitious  fringe  lay  under  his 
fatalism.  He  was  much  upset  by  the  fall  of 
a  picture   of   the  Irish  party   just   after  the 


58  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

Phoenix  Park  murders.  He  detested  the  colour 
green,  which  he  intended  one  day  to  change 
from  the  national  colour.  He  believed  Ireland's 
bad  luck  was  due  to  it.  He  could  hardly  be 
said  to  worship  a  God.  He  never  swore,  using 
only  the  mildest  expressions.  Like  most  men 
of  destiny,  he  believed  in  Fate  in  the  way  that 
most  men  of  thought  believe  in  Providence. 

In  the  Middle  Ages  he  would  have  been  an 
alchemist.  He  spent  long  hours  and  consider- 
able moneys  on  his  laboratory.  From  time  to 
time  he  extracted  minute  particles  of  Wicklow 
gold  on  his  estate.  When  human  politics 
seethed  about  him  he  took  consolation  in  his 
quarries  or  in  sweeping  the  heavens  with  his 
telescope.  He  seems  to  have  had  a  vague 
belief  in  star  life,  but  the  only  human  immor- 
tality he  could  conceive  of  was  in  children. 

To  a  race  of  orators  he  delivered  himself  in 
early  years  by  what  sounded  like  controlled 
hissings,  but  later  in  the  shortest  and  most 
frigid  of  speech.  His  longer  speeches  left  the 
"impression  from  a  grey  and  sunless  day  in 
which  everything  shows  clear  but  also  hard 
and  cold."  But  he  had  a  softer  voice  which 
he  used  when  addressing  children  or  animals. 
The  idol  of  an  intensely  religious  race,  he  be- 
lieved perhaps  in  their  idol  but  in  little  else. 


THE   MEMORY  OF  PARNELL      59 

In  the  supreme  moments  of  his  hfe  he  was 
liable  to  appear  dumb  or  indifferent.  He  ac- 
cepted the  Parnell  tribute  without  one  word 
of  thanks.  To  the  ovation  of  crowd  or  House 
of  Commons  he  was  contemptuous.  His  lead- 
ership he  regarded  with  a  sensitive  pride, 
which  was  also  strong  enough  to  carry  him 
through  disaster  unto  death.  As  a  boy  it  was 
said  he  was  fond  of  playing  the  game  of  "fol- 
low my  leader"  as  long  as  he  himself  remained 
leader.  It  was  the  same  in  his  after-life,  for 
when  he  could  no  longer  be  leader  he  was  not 
unready  to  die. 

It  is  interesting  to  compare  him  with  the 
only  contemporary  Englishman  occupying  as 
great  a  hold  on  popular  imagination,  Randolph 
Churchill.  Both  were  aristocrats  by  birth  and 
breeding,  who  aimed  at  wielding  great  demo- 
cratic power.  They  were  the  only  two  of  their 
generation  to  stand  up  to  Gladstone  in  debate. 
His  eloquence  they  met  with  scorn  or  ribaldry, 
but  he  lived  to  see  them  both  laid  in  early 
graves.  Both  died  at  forty-six,  under  the 
clouds  of  disaster.  It  was  only  natural  that 
they  should  have  attracted  each  other  at  one 
time  almost  to  the  extent  of  coming  to  an 
understanding  over  the  Irish  question.  Each 
in  his  time  had  revolted  against  an  "old  gang" 


60  THE   IRISH  ISSUE 

and  set  a  devoted  following  towards  pastures 
new.  After  a  short  conversation  they  broke, 
Parnell  claiming  that  he  had  got  more  out  of 
Churchill  than  the  latter  out  of  him.  In  the 
day  of  his  ruin  Churchill  regretted  that  he  did 
not  possess  ParnelFs  "dogged  and  sinister 
resolution."  In  the  end  both  were  betrayed 
by  their  own  colleagues  and  finally  cut  down 
in  the  house  of  their  friends.  Whatever  mis- 
takes they  made  they  paid  the  price  before 
they  died.  Both  had  striven  to  lead  their 
parties  into  new  paths  and  both  were  cast  out 
to  die  alone  in  madness  and  despair. 


IV 

THE  TREASON  OF  THE  REDMONDS 

John  Redmond  succeeded  to  ParnelFs  chair 
and  fate.  The  majority  of  Irishmen  in  Amer- 
ica beheve  or  say  that  the  Redmond  brothers 
betrayed  Ireland  in  the  first  and  vital  stage  of 
the  war.  That  they  gratuitously  gave  Ire- 
land's aid  to  England  and  that  they  got  noth- 
ing for  it,  not  even  a  staff  billet  for  Willie 
Redmond  or  an  Order  of  Merit  for  John.  It  is 
felt  that  they  made  a  political  blunder  of  the 
first  magnitude  and  all  but  compromised  the 
honour  of  their  country.  That  Ireland  only 
succeeded  in  recovering  herself  by  a  miracle 
and  her  honour  by  an  insurrection,  while  the 
Redmonds  went  their  downward  way  and  were 
appropriately  paid  for  trusting  England.  That 
one  of  them  lies  dead  in  France  and  the  other 
is  politically  dead  in  Ireland. 

John  Redmond's  political  work  has  turned 
to  ash  and  his  twenty  years  of  leadership  is 
accounted  for  nought.  No  doubt  his  brother 
found  German  steel  softer  to  bear  than  he  has 

61 


62  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

found  Irish  reproaches.  Betrayed  in  all  his 
hopes  for  Ireland,  but  serene  in  conscience,  he 
awaits  nevertheless  the  judgment  of  history. 
Once  John  was  venerated  of  all  men  Irish  and 
Willie  was  the  idol  of  the  race,  the  D'Artagnan 
of  Irish  politics.  But  nations  as  well  as  indi- 
viduals must  ofttimes  kill  the  thing  they  love. 
And  for  the  time  being  Ireland  seems  to  have 
put  them  both  out  of  mind  and  out  of  love. 
The  root  of  the  accusation  is  that  John  Red- 
mond made  a  colossal  blunder  in  offering  the 
Irish  sword  to  the  allied  cause  without  stop- 
ping to  take  counsel  of  his  people  first  and 
without  insisting  on  the  immediate  delivery  of 
home  rule  upon  its  tip.  As  a  nationalist  poli- 
tician his  failure  must  seem  lamentable  to  all 
lovers  of  a  close  deal.  He  had  a  wonderful 
chance  to  bargain.  England's  fierce  and  sud- 
den need  was  Ireland's  miraculous  opportunity. 
More  than  the  word  of  any  other  single  man 
in  the  world,  England  needed  Redmond's  word 
of  approval  and  allegiance  to  the  principle  un- 
derlying the  war.  Germany  had  declared  war, 
implicitly  trusting  in  the  information  that  Ire- 
land was  divided  from  England  and  divided 
against  herself.  There  was  only  one  man  in  a 
position  to  give  the  United  Kingdom  the  ap- 
pearance of  unity  in  face  of  war.     It  was  John 


TREASON  OF  THE  REDMONDS      63 

Redmond,  and  from  higher  considerations  than 
the  mere  pohtical  he  spoke  the  word  which 
gave  Germany  the  severest  jolt  that  any  un- 
official individual  may  be  said  to  have  given  her 
during  the  war.  He  took  his  chances  as  every 
national  leader  who  has  come  into  this  war 
has  had  to  take  chances.  There  was  the  chance 
of  a  long  war  and  there  was  a  chance  that  all 
his  people  would  not  follow  him  all  the  time. 
Fate  but  not  honour  failed  him.  He  did  not 
betray  Ireland  in  theory  or  in  practice,  but  he 
may  be  said  to  have  betrayed  himself,  for  both 
English  politicians  and  Irish  critics  took  ad- 
vantage of  the  side  which  he  so  generously 
bared.  It  was  apparent  that  he  gave  his  pound 
of  blood  and  got  nothing  for  it.  He  seemed 
to  have  failed  to  perform  the  first  duty  of  a 
politician  in  not  seizing  his  advantage.  The 
political  opponents  of  a  lifetime  would  have 
been  at  his  mercy  if  he  had  privately  bargained 
for  home  rule  before  he  made  his  speech. 
Ireland  has  come  to  regret  and  assail  his  action. 
Only  the  winds  of  history,  which  make  havoc 
of  subterfuge  and  policy,  can  make  plain  his 
position  as  a  statesman  and  a  European. 

The  war  has  become  a  severely  altruistic 
war.  Nobody  dares  to  fight  for  sheer  conquest 
or  revenge.     Moral  principle  and  self-sacrifice 


64  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

are  the  only  permissible  pivots  of  action.  From 
this  point  of  view,  the  point  of  view  from 
which  the  participants  in  the  war  will  be 
judged,  it  is  better  to  forego  one's  rights  than 
to  imperil  those  of  others,  better  to  be  cheated 
than  to  cheat.  It  is  not  so  in  politics,  but  it 
is  so  in  a  war  waged  for  the  moralities  of  the 
world.  The  higher  that  one  appraises  the 
ethics  of  the  Allies,  the  higher  one  must  rate 
Redmond.  He  represents  principle  undone  by 
facts.  Facts  have  destroyed  his  political  value, 
but  if  he  no  longer  represents  Ireland  in  poli- 
tics, he  comes  near  to  representing  something 
in  national  relations,  which  since  the  blight  of 
Machiavelli  had  been  lost  to  Christendom. 

And  yet  it  is  hard  to  see  how  he  could  have 
acted  otherwise.  He  had  always  been  insist- 
ing that  if  England  gave  Ireland  home  rule, 
the  Irish  would  help  instead  of  embarrass  the 
empire.  He  was  accused  of  saying  one  thing 
in  Westminster  and  another  thing  in  America. 
Yet  thirty  years  ago  in  Chicago  he  was  saying, 
"We  have  given  England  the  most  convincing 
proof  that  on  the  concession  of  liberty  we  can 
be  trusty  friends."  He  and  his  whole  party 
had  been  elected  and  re-elected  without  re- 
pudiation of  this  promise  by  their  constituents. 
The  Irish  had  implicitly  accepted  the  saying 


TREASON  OF  THE  REDMONDS      65 

from  Redmond's  lips  and  Carson  had  explicitly 
ridiculed  it  to  Ulster's  huge  assent. 

Whether  Redmond  was  a  weak  man  leaning 
to  the  line  of  least  resistance  or  a  strong  man 
exercising  that  moderation  which  only  strong 
men  can,  others  may  decide.  For  the  moment 
he  seemed  to  have  united  Ireland,  to  have 
broken  the  feud  between  England  and  Ireland 
and  to  have  played  a  successful  game  in  the 
open.  The  hour  of  penetrating  and  unrelent- 
ing test,  which  visits  every  individual  and  every 
nation  in  such  a  war,  came  to  Redmond  as  it 
came  to  the  King  of  the  Belgians.  It  was 
equally  a  case  of  betraying  the  material  advan- 
tages of  his  position  that  a  principle  might  live. 
On  the  moral  issue  in  Europe  Redmond  re- 
versed the  domestic  policy  of  Ireland.  He  ap- 
pealed to  the  Ulster  and  National  Volunteers 
to  unite  in  the  defence  of  Ireland.  He  turned 
to  the  government  with  the  cry:  "You  may 
remove  your  troops  from  Ireland !"  Out  of  a 
moment  of  epic  he  seemed  to  have  snatched 
the  Irish  millennium,  but  all  three  to  whom  he 
appealed  were  to  fail  him.  The  Ulster  Volun- 
teers had  no  wish  to  make  up  a  United  Ireland. 
They  kept  aloof.  The  government  showed  no 
desire  to  trust  the  honour  of  the  Irish  people  or 
the  words  of  their  leader.     Redmond's  sup- 


66  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

porters  discovered  that  they  had  not  sent  him 
to  ParHament  to  decide  moral  issues  on  the 
Continent,  but  to  extort  home  rule.  It  was 
probably  as  much  his  duty  as  a  politician  to 
win  home  rule  out  of  the  crisis  as  it  was  his 
duty  as  a  European  statesman  not  to  make 
confusion  in  the  one  spot  to  which  Ulster  action 
had  directed  the  eyes  of  the  All  Highest.  As 
a  result  of  his  action  Ireland  became  the  one 
bright  spot — momentarily. 

Home  rule  was  put  on  the  statute-book,  but 
with  a  proviso  that  it  must  await  the  end  of 
the  war  to  come  into  effect.  To  have  made 
Redmond  Irish  premier  would  have  hastened 
the  end  of  the  war.  Supreme  and  enlightened 
policy  would  have  led  England  to  pay  the  poli- 
tician's fee  in  return  for  the  statesman's  sacri- 
fice. Had  he  used  England's  plight  to  play  a 
political  game,  Ireland's  plight  might  have 
been  worse  in  the  end.  He  who  acts  in  such 
days  as  a  mere  politician  shall  perish  as  such. 
Redmond  threw  politics  to  the  wind  and  politi- 
cal death  cannot  harm  his  name. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  Redmond  saw  a 
great  opportunity  to  place  Ireland  on  the 
proper  level  she  should  occupy  in  relation  to 
neighbouring  countries  like  France  and  Eng- 
land.    This  was  obvious  to  many  of  the  Sinn 


TREASON  OF  THE  REDMONDS      67 

Feiners,  who  were  ready  to  enter  into  any  mili- 
tary scheme  which  guaranteed  the  national 
honour.  Only,  some  form  of  national  govern- 
ment to  sanction  and  control  any  national  sac- 
rifice in  the  field  was  a  sine  qua  non.  Unfor- 
tunately Tory  political  influence  was  strong 
enough  to  insist  that  Ireland's  contribution  to 
the  defence  of  France  should  pass  as  strictly 
British.  The  green  flag  was  denied  in  the  field 
and  every  proposal  of  the  Irish  party  was 
scorned  by  the  callous  war  office. 

What  the  imperial  politicians  failed  to  see 
was  Redmond's  unique  value  to  the  empire. 
Here  was  a  war  for  small  nationalities  and  here 
was  the  proffer  of  a  small  nation's  sword ! 
Here  was  a  war  between  two  military  imperial 
Powers  and  a  free  Ireland  better  than  any 
propaganda  would  have  distinguished  the  qual- 
ity of  the  one  from  the  other!  Here  was  a 
keen  tussle  for  public  opinion  in  America,  and 
Redmond  installed  as  an  Irish  premier  would 
have  been  in  a  position  to  appeal  for  it.  The 
cry  went  out  later  and  the  research  magnificent 
was  made  for  the  man  who  would  save  the 
empire.  Hughes  was  discovered  in  Australia, 
Smuts  was  hailed  in  South  Africa,  and  Borden 
boomed  in  Canada.  The  blinded  Cabinet  never 
realised  that  nothing  would  have  sooner  closed 


68  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

fissures  in  the  empire  or  insured  the  co-opera- 
tion of  the  self-governing  colonies  better  than 
an  Irish  premier  in  their  councils.  It  would 
also  have  encouraged  America  during  the  thirty 
months  she  required  to  make  up  her  mind. 
But  it  was  not  to  be,  and  Redmond  was  strand- 
ed between  two  seas,  between  the  unimagina- 
tive inanity  of  the  government  after  the  dec- 
laration of  war  and  the  savagery  of  sorrow 
which  swept  through  Ireland  after  the  rising. 

Such  was  the  tragedy  which  befell  the  Red- 
monds. Locally  and  through  the  blundering  of 
others  they  have  fallen  into  disregard,  but  the 
day  will  come  when  Irish  historians  will  be  glad 
to  take  refuge  amidst  the  after-war  controver- 
sies in  the  first  and  solemn  stand  which  the 
Irish  leader  made  in  the  name  of  his  people 
against  the  destruction  of  Belgium,  though  for 
the  time  he  was  stranded,  a  spectacle  to  Celtic 
deities  and  to  all  political  mankind. 

The  death  of  Willie  Redmond  in  the  field  was 
one  of  the  most  dramatic  and  pathetic  events 
in  the  war.  For  a  quarter  of  a  century  he  had 
represented  the  stony  hills  of  Clare  in  the 
stonier  wastes  of  Westminster.  In  the  old  days 
so  many  of  the  men  of  Clare  went  to  fight  in 
France  that  France  was  spoken  of  as  the 
graveyard  of  Clare.     The  ancient  and  honour- 


TREASON  OF  THE  REDMONDS      69 

able  doom  of  Clare  befell  Willie  Redmond. 
By  an  irony  of  fate  not  unknown  in  Ireland  he 
was  carried  back  to  die  by  the  men  of  Ulster, 
whom  he  had  so  long  opposed  in  politics. 
Death  in  Ireland  was  not  granted  to  him,  as  it 
was  not  granted  either  to  O'Connell  or  Parnell. 
O'Connell  died  in  Genoa,  broken  by  the  famine, 
overthrown  by  the  revolutionists.  Parnell  also 
crept  away  from  Ireland  to  die,  because  the 
people  who  were  to  weep  over  him  dead  rent 
him  living.  Far  from  Clare  and  apart  from 
the  men  of  Clare,  Willie  Redmond  died,  tast- 
ing the  doom  which  is  the  doom  of  the  leaders 
of  Ireland.  Those  who  serve  Ireland  have 
found  that  her  service  leads  to  disappointment 
and  even  to  death,  but  that  if  the  service  of 
Ireland  is  bitterer  than  death  it  is  also  sweeter  \ 
than  life.  The  Irish  themselves  will  always  be 
a  good  excuse  for  God's  goodness  to  their  dead 
leaders. 

So  it  fares  with  the  Redmonds.  One  has 
died  as  a  soldier  and  the  other  shall  one  day 
live  as  a  statesman  with  Venizelos  and  Lieb- 
knecht,  the  prototypes  of  a  new  era  when  lead- 
ers shall  have  learnt  to  sacrifice  themselves 
rather  than  pass  over  the  infringement  of  the 
higher  law.  Ireland  has  wished  to  forget  John 
Redmond.     The  day  will  come  when  the  Irish 


70  THE   IRISH   ISSUE 

will  find  his  name  as  great  a  slogan  upon  their 
lips  as  '*  Remember  Limerick,"  the  city  of  the 
broken  treaty.  It  will  be  the  English  who  will 
wish  to  forget  him  then,  for  the  historians  to 
come  will  remember  him,  whatever  the  poets 
may  utter  of  malediction  against  him  to-day. 


THE  ETHICS  OF  SINN  FEIN 

Few  words  have  incurred  such  wide-spread  in- 
terest as  a  result  of  the  war  as  the  hitherto  ob- 
scure password  Sinn  Fein.  A  word  which  a  few 
years  ago  was  known  to  only  a  comparatively 
few  thinkers  and  propagandists  in  Ireland  has 
since  been  canvassed  by  the  press  of  the  world. 
Sinn  Fein  is  still  a  stumbling-block  to  philolo- 
gists as  well  as  to  politicians.  Sinn  Fein  is 
simply  the  Gaelic  for  "ourselves,"  which,  after 
all,  is  the  working  motto  of  every  government 
and  corporation  in  the  modern  ring.  Trusts 
and  tariffs  are  Sinn  Fein  applied  to  the  indus- 
trial world.  The  workings  of  empires  and 
chosen  peoples  are  pure  Sinn  Fein.  But  there 
is  a  Sinn  Fein  of  the  conquered  as  well  as  of 
the  conqueror.  If  Moses  led  a  Sinn  Fein  offen- 
sive into  Palestine,  the  Ghetto  was  no  less  a 
hotbed  of  mediaeval  Sinn  Fein  thrown  back 
upon  itself.  Applied  to  nationalism  Sinn  Fein 
is  the  expression  of  personality  in  a  people,  but 

whether  as  a  means  of  defence  or  offence — 

71 


1%  THE   IRISH   ISSUE 

there  lies  the  rub  of  modern  history.  As  Wash- 
ington said:  *'I  want  an  American  character 
that  the  Powers  of  Europe  may  be  convinced 
we  act  for  ourselves." 

The  small  nationality  is  a  Sinn  Fein  propo- 
sition. It  is  curious  to  think  of  old  John  Huss 
as  the  grandfather  of  all  Sinn  Fein.  Yet  he 
told  the  Council  of  Constance  that  ''Bohemians 
should  have  by  right  the  chief  place  in  the 
oflSces  of  the  Kingdom  of  Bohemia,  even  as 
they  that  are  French-born  in  the  Kingdom  of 
France  and  the  Germans  in  their  own  country, 
whereby  the  Bohemian  might  have  the  faculty 
to  rule  his  people  and  the  Germans  bear  rule 
over  the  Germans."  The  importance  of  the 
Bohemians  in  Europe  has  always  been  that 
they  form  a  Slavic  wedge  between  two  branches 
of  the  German  people,  just  as  Ireland's  strength 
or  weakness  as  a  world  factor  depends  on  her 
geographical  position  in  the  Atlantic  between 
the  two  great  branches  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race. 
Bohemia  is  an  inland  Ireland.  It  is  interesting 
that  both  countries  should  have  been  strongly 
pro-French  in  the  war  of  1870,  when  left  to 
their  own  instincts.  The  modern  Czech  asso- 
ciations correspond  largely  to  those  of  Gaelic 
Ireland.  The  Sokols,  for  instance,  a  Pan-Slavic 
athletic   society,   is   exactly   what   the   Gaelic 


THE  ETHICS  OF  SINN  FEIN        73 

Athletic  Association  is  to  Ireland.  During  the 
war  Sinn  Fein  in  Bohemia  has  been  crushed 
with  a  ruthlessness  that  we  can  only  be  thank- 
ful was  not  applied  in  Ireland.  The  Bohemians 
have  refused  to  be  conscripted  for  other  than 
Bohemian  ends,  and  regiments  have  been  deci- 
mated to  order.  War  likewise  has  been  made 
on  the  literary  men  and  the  poets,  for  the  poets 
have  always  been  on  the  side  of  the  small  na- 
tionalities. The  muse  of  the  Jingo  has  run 
sterile  during  this  war.  Kipling's  reputation 
has  shared  that  of  the  generals,  but  Verhaeren 
of  Belgium,  Macdonagh  of  Dublin,  and  Machar 
of  Bohemia,  their  song  shall  endure. 

Sinn  Fein  is  definitely  the  policy  of  all  small 
nationalities.  It  moves  by  laws  which  are 
common  to  different  countries.  It  has  invari- 
ably the  poetry  of  the  lost  cause  attached  to  it 
and  the  menace  of  a  greater  nation  to  secure  it 
the  sympathy  of  the  rest  of  the  world.  Poland 
has  practised  Sinn  Fein  as  well  as  it  has  been 
able  ever  since  the  partitions.  Belgium  is  the 
Sinn  Fein  in  the  German  ointment.  Greek 
Sinn  Fein  enlisted  Byron  and  brought  about 
the  battle  of  Navarino.  Italian  Sinn  Fein  was 
incarnate  in  Garibaldi  and  thrust  Austria  out  of 
Venice.  The  British  have  always  fostered  and 
applauded  Continental  varieties  of  Sinn  Fein. 


74  THE   IRISH   ISSUE 

Pro-Ally  propaganda  describes  the  case  for 
Sinn  Fein  in  Bohemia  to-day.  The  programme 
of  the  Czechs  is  apparently  not  very  different 
from  that  of  the  Irish  Nationalists.  Doctor 
Kramarz,  the  leader  of  the  young  Czechs,  seems 
to  have  occupied  a  similar  position  to  John 
McNeill,  the  Sinn  Fein  leader  in  Ireland. 
Kramarz  had  no  wish  to  be  disloyal  to  Austria, 
provided  Bohemia  was  recognised.  He  was 
willing  to  be  pro- Austrian  in  an  Austria  which 
gave  freedom  to  the  Slavic  ideal,  just  as  Irish 
Nationalists  were  always  ready  to  make  their 
peace  with  an  empire  that  did  not  disparage 
the  ideal  of  the  Gael.  Kramarz,  a  successor 
of  Huss,  realised  sadly  that  "a  foreign  policy 
focussed  in  Berlin  leaves  no  room  for  the  Aus- 
trian Slavs."  Curiously  enough,  both  Kram- 
arz and  McNeill  were  condemned  to  penal 
servitude  within  a  few  days  of  each  other  for 
the  crime  of  treason  on  perfectly  general 
grounds.  In  releasing  McNeill  the  British 
realised  their  mistake.  The  Austrians  have 
not. 

In  Ireland  the  Sinn  Fein  movement  was  in- 
dustrial, linguistic,  and  ethical.  Valiant  efforts 
were  made  to  grow  Irish  tobacco  and  to  enjoy 
it  with  the  aid  of  Irish  matches.  Every  class 
and  profession  was  touched  by  an  almost  re- 


THE   ETHICS  OF  SINN  FEIN        75 

ligious  desire  for  native  productions.  Scribe 
and  poet  demanded  Irish  paper  and  Irish  ink. 
There  arose  a  passionate  request  for  Irish  cloth 
and  fabric  and  even  for  Irish  rosaries.  Char- 
women charred  happier  with  native  soap,  and 
Celtic  characters  on  the  sign-posts  became 
equally  the  source  of  travellers'  joy  and  per- 
plexity. The  most  ambitious  point  in  the  pro- 
gramme demanded  that  English  goods  should 
be  excluded  and  that  the  Irish  representation 
should  remain  at  home.  The  root  idea  was  not 
Irish  in  origin  but  was  frankly  based  on  the 
similar  movement  which  led  to  a  national  res- 
urrection of  Hungary.  Those  who  cradled  and 
pioneered  it  were  laughed  at  for  a  "green  Hun- 
garian band"  with  that  fatal  facility  for  nick- 
name in  Irish  life. 

Such  a  movement,  however  vague  and  mean- 
ingless to  English  understanding,  had  quite  a 
comprehensible  analogy  with  such  ripples  in 
English  life  as  the  Ritualist,  ^Esthetic,  or 
Christian  Socialist  movements.  The  form  may 
be  different,  but  the  matter,  the  wine  of  youth, 
the  enthusiasm  of  idealists,  the  desire  for  bet- 
ter things,  the  revolt  from  conventional  stale- 
ness  and  mediocrity,  was  the  same  in  both 
countries.  It  would  have  been  curious  to 
know  what  would  have  happened  to  such  sweet 


76  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

but  impatient  spirits  as  Hurrell  Froude,  Kings- 
ley,  and  Morris  had  they  been  born  in  Ireland. 
Cardinal  Newman  confessed  that  he  would 
have  been  a  rebel  had  he  been  an  Irishman. 

So  with  song  and  high  hope  the  Gaelic  move- 
ment swung  under  way.  At  most  it  did  not 
lead  to  more  than  a  battle  of  the  books  in  those 
days  of  boyish  defiance  and  literary  contro- 
versy. Only  a  few  among  the  Sinn  Feiners 
brooded  a  warlike  application  of  the  ancient 
dream.  Yet  this  movement  under  normal  con- 
ditions should  no  more  have  led  to  bloodshed 
than  the  Oxford  movement  have  terminated  in 
a  gunpowder  plot.  But  Ireland  is  never  nor- 
mal. 

Before  the  rising  the  Sinn  Fein  were  unable 
to  win  an  election.  Their  solitary  appearance 
in  a  Leitrim  constituency  met  with  a  signal 
defeat  from  the  Nationalist  machine.  As  they 
were  by  their  very  programme  destructive  of 
the  Irish  party  the  attitude  of  the  latter  was 
perhaps  excusable.  The  Irish  party  was  then 
slowly  satisfying  that  national  ideal  which  only 
when  in  extremis  and  desperation  assumes  the 
revolutionary  colour.  But  the  estrangement 
with  the  old  leaders  came.  They  broke  away 
from  Redmond's  constitutionalism  and  from 
Douglas  Hyde,  who  resigned  the  presidency  of 


THE  ETHICS   OF  SINN  FEIN        77 

the  Gaelic  League  when  he  refused  to  make  it 
poHtical.  During  a  long  quarter  of  a  century 
Parliament  had  afforded  a  safety-valve  to  na- 
tionalism, but  the  defeats  and  delays  of  home 
rule  proved  an  irritant  of  gathering  force. 
Time  is  never  on  the  side  of  sedative  or  solution 
in  Ireland.  Event  must  keep  pace  with  emo- 
tion, and  result  must  feed  demand.  "Home 
rule  at  no  distant  date"  became  a  byword 
synonymous  with  the  Greek  or  Celtic  kalends. 
Only  Redmond's  handling  of  the  lightning  con- 
ductor in  Parliament  averted  the  bolt.  But 
time  and  destiny  and  bureaucracy,  an  inexora- 
ble trio,  tended  to  neutralise  his  gallant  efforts 
before  and  after  the  outbreak  of  the  war. 

Meantime  the  Sinn  Fein  went  under  the  im- 
pulse of  an  overriding  idea,  leaderless.  The 
men  who  had  inspired  them  were  constitution- 
alists, but  were  incapable  of  adding  direction. 
What  is  not  yet  known  for  the  purposes  of  his- 
tory is  when  the  Irish  Revolutionary  Brother- 
hood rose  like  a  ghost  out  of  the  past  and  as- 
sumed control.  Long  after  the  cordiality  of 
settled  peace  has  been  restored  to  Europe  men 
may  perhaps  become  agreed  as  to  what  were 
the  real  causes  and  incidents  of  the  Irish  ris- 
ing. We  only  know  that  the  Sinn  Feiners  rose 
swiftly  and  blindly,  but  for  the  local  ideals 


78  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

which  Germany  is  elsewhere  trying  to  crush. 
They  died  wantonly  and  superfluously  on  behalf 
of  their  liberty.  They  met  and  slew  men,  who 
also  after  their  manner  had  enlisted  in  the 
cause  of  liberty.  They  went  out  and  threw 
Ireland  into  confusion  for  a  generation  to  come, 
but  with  suicidal  gesture  and  distorted  phrase 
nevertheless  they  were  pleading  for  the  life  and 
right  of  a  small  nationality. 

Once  again  the  Nameless  One  that  presides 
over  the  mortal  side  of  Irish  history  had  min- 
gled the  woof  with  direst  tragedy.  Fortunately 
indeed,  there  is  an  immortal  side  as  well,  which 
no  tragedy  can  touch,  no  politics  embitter,  and 
no  madness  destroy. 

The  original  dreamers  of  the  Sinn  Fein  who 
had  remained  aloof  from  the  rising  came  out  of 
the  wilderness.  They  carried  before  them  into 
battle  the  dead  martyrs,  and  the  electorate 
was  theirs  for  the  taking.  In  Celtic  Ireland 
armies  carried  the  potent  bodies  of  dead  Kings 
in  their  battle-front  and  attributed  victory  to 
them.  In  like  manner  the  Sinn  Fein  can  now 
sweep  an  emotional  majority  in  any  two  seats 
out  of  three  in  Ireland.  For  the  time  even  the 
historic  feud  with  England  waits  while  the 
Sinn  Fein  settle  their  long  score  with  the  Irish 
party.     Irishmen  of  the  most  different  brand 


THE  ETHICS  OF  SINN  FEIN        79 

can  take  pride  but  never  pity  in  each  other. 
It  is  grim  how  Celt  can  fall  upon  Celt,  and  all 
to  make  a  British  holiday.  One  remembers 
Carson  dissecting  his  unhappy  fellow  Irishman, 
Oscar  Wilde,  in  the  witness  box,  and  Russell  of 
Killowen  closing  pitilessly  on  Piggott  the  forger 
of  the  Parnell  letters.  Yet  they  were  Irishmen 
all.  When  there  is  a  great  Irish  triumph  there 
is  too  often  Irish  suffering  in  the  background. 
The  slow  agony  of  the  Irish  party  began  at  the 
unabsolving  hands  of  the  Sinn  Fein.  Woe  to 
the  politician  who  did  not  discern  the  signs  of 
the  time !  for  his  place  shall  be  made  vacant 
and  his  bishopric  given  to  another.  Woe  to 
the  man  of  letters  who  at  the  time  misjudged 
the  rising  of  the  Sinn  Fein !  for  he  shall  be  cut 
out  of  the  soul  of  his  own  people.  As  Rolland 
Romain  by  his  neutrality  above  the  clouds  of 
battle  lost  the  love  which  would  have  been 
added  to  the  admiration  which  his  fellow 
countrymen  feel  for  his  writings,  so  it  is  with 
the  Irish  writer  whose  pen  did  not  beat  to  the 
agony  of  Easter  week. 

The  Sinn  Fein  is  not  an  abortion  but  is  in 
symbolic  relations  to  the  whole  labouring  earth. 
The  time  has  come,  as  Henry  VIII  said  on 
being  told  all  Ireland  could  not  govern  the 
Earl  of  Kildare,  "then  let  the  Earl  of  Kildare 


80  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

govern  all  Ireland/'  that  the  Sinn  Fein  prov- 
ing ungovernable  should  be  placed  in  a  posi- 
tion to  govern  themselves.  Responsibility  alone 
can  anchor  idealists  to  earth.  Sooner  or  later 
they  will  come  to  terms  with  Ulster.  Already 
they  have  destroyed  the  power  of  the  Irish 
party,  and  in  the  future  they  promise  to  check 
if  not  annul  the  political  power  of  the  priest. 
Just  as  the  Ulster  sedition  was  led  by  "loyal- 
ists," so  the  anticlerical  movement  in  Ireland 
is  led  by  curates. 

But  Sinn  Fein  has  reached  its  day,  and  for 
long  there  will  be  neither  quarter  or  compro- 
mise. Sinn  Fein  is  a  fever,  against  which  there 
is  no  appeal,  terrorising  and  exalting  the  emo- 
tions of  a  whole  generation  with  something  be- 
tween the  psychology  of  a  race  riot  and  of  a 
religious  revival.  Only  the  judicious  and  the 
middle-aged  and  the  uninspired  can  afford  to 
stand  aside.  The  riffraff  and  the  rowdy  of 
Ireland  are  of  it,  but  so  also  are  the  radiant 
and  the  righteous  of  soul,  some  of  the  best  that 
a  nation  can  contain.  Time  only  can  show 
whether  the  sediment  from  the  troubled  waters 
will  yield  the  base  of  a  nation  or  of  a  faction 
only.  Even  so  the  faction  of  to-day  is  the 
nation  of  to-morrow. 


VI 

THE  PRESIDENCY  OF  PEARSE 

The  presidency  of  Patrick  Pearse  in  the 
Irish  repubhc  was  one  of  the  most  sudden  and 
sifting  events  of  Irish  history.  There  have 
been  other  bolts  from  the  green,  but  in  the 
memory  of  man  none  so  starthng  in  origin,  so 
piteous  in  end,  or  so  far-reaching  in  result.  The 
Phoenix  Park  murders  and  the  Parnellite  split, 
which  in  other  countries  would  not  have  caused 
more  than  a  nine  days'  wonder,  were  sufficient 
to  dash  Irish  hopes  and  to  affect  remote  parts 
of  the  earth.  The  presidency  of  Patrick  Pearse 
during  a  blood-shot  week  in  Dublin  has  changed 
the  course  of  Irish  history,  and  in  its  far- 
thrown  ripple  proved  only  second  to  the  Rus- 
sian revolution  in  the  extraneous  interest  it 
roused. 

Pearse  will  be  remembered  for  the  last  week 
and  especially  for  the  last  minute  of  his  life, 
and  less  for  the  patient,  faithful  years  when 
he  laboured  as  a  journalist  in  what  was  to  him 
a  strange  tongue,  and  later  as  a  pioneer  among 

81 


8^  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

Irish  schoolmasterse  As  many  books  will  be 
written  on  the  subject  as  there  were  hours  in 
the  life  of  the  short-lived  republic.  Historians 
will  collate  the  incidents  and  philosophers  ex- 
pound the  ethics.  Controversialists  will  con- 
trovert the  facts  and  idealists  conflict  over  the 
ideals.  Few  will  open  the  Gaelic  files  in  which 
so  much  of  Pearse's  writing  was  done  or  give 
themselves  over  to  the  study  of  the  education- 
alist. Yet  his  greatest  work  was  done  in  the 
schools.  Before  he  revolutionised  the  Iri^h 
capital,  Pearse  had  revolutionised  the  Irish 
school. 

In  a  moment  of  inspiration  he  left  his  desk 
as  editor  of  the  Cleeve  Sholuis,  or  Sword  of 
Light,  and  founded  Scoil  Enna  or  St.  Enda's 
School,  in  which  he  proposed  to  carry  on  the 
education  of  Irish  boys,  as  though  the  centuries 
of  English  occupation  and  culture  had  never 
been,  and  Irish  Ireland  were  a  reality.  The 
Irish  language,  dress,  customs,  and  traditions 
were  made  part  of  the  school  life.  It  came  as 
a  distinct  shock  verging  on  astonishment  to 
the  other  school  curricula  of  Ireland.  For  the 
boys  were  not  taken  to  be  stuffed  like  birds 
for  the  examination  market,  but  were  fostered 
rather  as  children  were  in  ancient  Ireland,  who 
were  placed  in  the  suites  of  well-known  heroes 


THE  PRESIDENCY  OF  PEARSE       83 

or  Kings,  that  the  best  might  be  brought  out 
in  them  through  emulation  of  their  hosts.  The 
head  master  of  St.  Enda's  compared  his  boys 
to  the  boy  corps  at  Royal  Emania,  who  prac- 
tised for  heroics  in  war  and  Hterature  under 
the  eagle  eye  of  the  King  of  Ireland.  "The 
King  is  with  his  foster  children,"  we  are  told, 
was  a  frequent  answer  at  Court  in  those  far-off 
Gaelic  days.  While  the  clan  lasted,  fosterage 
played  its  part  in  Ireland.  To  revive  it  in  edu- 
cational guise  was  a  step  of  genius  that  could 
only  have  occurred  to  Patrick  Pearse.  Boys 
arrived  from  all  over  Ireland  and  for  very  small 
fees  were  initiated  into  the  whole  gamut  of 
Gaelic  living  and  dying,  in  fact  into  the  long- 
lost  art  of  the  heroic  life.  The  intellectual  up- 
rising of  Dublin  was  then  at  its  height,  and 
masters  and  boys  entered  into  it  not  only  as 
students  but  as  performers.  Such  first-class  lit- 
terateurs as  Thomas  MacDonagh  and  Padraic 
Colum  joined  the  staff.  The  school  indulged 
in  pageants  and  plays.  Literary  Dublin,  in- 
terested in  the  Gaelic  revival,  attended  their 
pageant  of  heroic  Ireland  in  the  city  suburbs. 
Another  day  a  kind  of  passion  play  was  given 
in  the  old  language.  Nobody  believed  that 
the  school  could  last.  John  McNeill  and 
Stephen  Gwynn  sent  their  boys.     Others  de- 


84  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

murred  at  the  sacrifice  to  be  made  to  the  an- 
tique. There  was  a  melancholy  expectation 
that  for  a  few  months  Pearse's  talents  would 
be  spent  with  a  few  kilted  boys  translating  a 
book  of  Euclid  into  Connact  Irish.  But  the 
school  continued  in  spite  of  every  financial  diffi- 
culty, and  even  flowered  into  larger  premises. 
Pearse  made  one  flying  visit  to  America,  whose 
streets  he  trod,  meeting  with  as  little  recogni- 
tion as  Rupert  Brooke,  who  soon  after  passed 
unhailed  through  the  same  land,  where  each 
was  to  find  posthumous  hero-worship.  With 
such  funds  as  his  friends  and  lecturing  produced 
he  kept  his  school  in  the  front  line  of  Irish 
education.  To  politics  and  to  home  rule  bills 
he  was  indifferent,  believing  that  no  act  of 
alien  Parliament  could  restore  a  nation's  soul. 
His  school  not  only  taught  but  it  also  made 
history.  St.  Enda's  began  as  a  pastoral  idyll 
in  the  suburbs  of  Rathmines  and  it  finished 
as  a  fiery  epic  under  the  burning  ruins  of  the 
Dublin  post  office. 

Pearse  was  a  man  of  a  single  dream,  of  a 
single  life,  of  a  single  heart,  of  a  single  ideal. 
He  became  historical  through  a  single  decision 
and  famous  in  a  single  week.  Simplicity  and 
straightforwardness  was  his  policy  in  the  face 
of  fact  and  the  assaults  of  absurdity.     He  al- 


THE   PRESIDENCY  OF   PEARSE        85 

ways  made  the  extreme  course  the  short  cut  to 
his  soul's  desire.  He  did  not  mind  being  singu- 
lar, even  to  the  extent  of  making  Irish  theo- 
retically his  single  speech.  There  was  no  turn- 
ing or  influencing  him  once  he  had  chosen  his 
path.  He  was  as  poetic,  as  revolutionary,  and 
as  wayward  as  Shelley,  but  with  a  sombre 
touch  that  took  the  place  of  passion  in  his  life. 
What  atheism  was  to  Shelley's  youthful  en- 
thusiasm, Fenianism  was  to  Pearse.  In  a  mind 
otherwise  so  gentle,  it  was  the  one  terrible  and 
besetting  strain. 

The  theme  of  death,  disaster,  and  suffering 
for  Ireland  never  left  his  thought.  Whether  he 
worked  as  a  barrister  or  as  a  schoolmaster, 
while  his  vocation  was  religious  or  journalistic, 
he  seemed  to  be  haunted  by  an  icy  breath  from 
the  coming  years.  He  was  never  in  love  ex- 
cept with  his  abstract  goal  of  a  free  Ireland. 
He  enjoyed  the  sadness  of  meditation  and  was 
expectant  of  shame  in  the  Irish  cause.  In  his 
poems  this  was  darkly  shown  to  those  who 
could  interpret  them.  Death  was  his  familiar, 
and  he  coquetted  with  the  grave.  Alan  Sea- 
ger's  " rendez-vous  with  death,"  found  its  exact 
Gaelic  parody  in  Pearse' s  lines: 

"a  rann  I  made  to  my  love, 
to  the  king  of  kings,  ancient  death," 


86  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

Death  was  not  his  only  devotion.  He  was 
passionately  fond  of  children,  and  he  cared  for 
all  small  creeping  things.  His  pupils  were 
placed  under  stringent  oath  never  to  hurt  bird 
or  butterfly.  Poetry,  folk-lore,  and  symbolism 
possessed  him.  He  that  loved  so  many  un- 
substantial things  from  the  God,  who  in  a 
moment  of  fantasy  created  Ireland,  to  the 
songs  that  Gaelic  beggar  men  sing  at  the  cross- 
roads, needed  to  find  one  object  of  enmity. 
And  he  found  it  in  history,  out  of  which  he 
dug  the  Englishman  of  the  penal  days,  and 
against  whom  he  set  his  heart  with  unrelenting 
zeal.  As  he  wrote  once:  "I  will  take  no  pike. 
I  will  go  into  the  battle  with  bare  hands.  I 
will  stand  up  before  the  Gall,  as  Christ  hung 
naked  before  men  on  the  tree."  With  such  a 
prophet  what  was  there  to  be  done.^  For  he 
prophesied  his  own  death  and  took  the  first 
opportunity  to  seek  its  fulfilment.  In  St. 
Enda's  used  to  hang  a  mystical  picture  of  a 
mourning  woman,  under  whose  cloak  clustered 
thickly  the  little  naked  manikin  souls  of  men. 
It  looked  like  some  very  doleful  virgin  salving 
the  sons  of  earth  in  purgatory.  It  was  a  rep- 
resentation of  the  dead  who  died  for  Ireland, 
whom  Pearse  had  vowed  to  join. 

Though  the  school  lived  in  an  atmosphere  of 


THE   PRESIDENCY  OF   PEARSE        87 

past  rebellions  and  Pearse  sometimes  spoke  of 
the  enthusiasm  with  which  he  felt  he  could  lead 
out  the  boys,  yet  there  was  never  the  slight- 
est attempt  to  drill  the  boys  or  to  secrete  arms. 
Revolt  was  purely  academical  and,  besides, 
the  whole  trend  of  the  Gaelic  movement  was 
to  save  Ireland  by  books  rather  than  by  the 
blunderbuss.  By  ballad  and  not  by  bullet 
would  MacDonagh  have  preferred  to  train 
boys  to  free  their  land.  So  in  those  delightful 
early  days  there  was  more  trouble  with  the 
tradesmen  than  with  the  British  Government. 
The  school  lived  a  happy-go-lucky  life  of  its 
own,  becoming  in  a  few  years  one  of  the  set- 
tled institutions  of  Dublin.  Archbishop  Walsh 
gave  it  his  sanction  and  wondering  visitors 
never  failed  it.  In  the  background  Pearse  was 
for  ever  conspiring  with  the  phantoms  of  his 
own  mind. 

With  the  Carson  episode  and  the  Ulster  gun- 
running,  Fenian  dreams  began  to  take  concrete 
shape  among  the  dreamers  and  poets  of  Dub- 
lin. Thinkers  were  quick-witted  enough  to 
see  that  Carson  had  played  indirectly  into  the 
hands  of  the  physical-force  men.  While  the 
Ulstermen  stood  within  their  undoubted  rights 
and  defied  Redmond  or  the  government  to  ad- 
vance upon  their  homelands,  unprotected  save 


88  THE   IRISH   ISSUE 

by  Bible  and  covenant,  they  were  playing  a 
winning  game,  which  would  have  won  them 
sympathy  all  over  the  world  and  turned  the 
polls  in  England.  It  was  essential  for  their 
policy  to  provoke  the  Nationalists  to  take  the 
offensive  and  strike  the  first  blow.  Redmond's 
statecraft  counselled  patience,  and  secure  in 
their  constitutional  triumph  the  Nationalists 
bore  every  contumely  that  was  hurled  at  them. 
If  riot  or  trouble  occurred,  the  Ulstermen  had 
everything  to  gain  by  them.  But  in  their 
anger  and  pride  they  made  the  huge  blunder 
of  creating  the  trouble  themselves  and  carry- 
ing out  a  serious  arming.  It  hurt  them  politi- 
cally as  much  as  it  lost  the  Kaiser  to  take  the 
offensive  against  France.  Had  Ulster  and  Ger- 
many waited  to  be  attacked  in  their  own  homes 
they  would  not  have  each  lost  the  sympathy 
of  the  American  people. 

The  state  of  the  chess-board  in  Ireland  is 
such  that  a  really  bold  move  by  either  side 
leads  to  consequences  that  can  never  be  over- 
taken. Destiny  enters  to  play  her  gambit. 
The  arming  of  Ulster  led  to  the  semi-arming  of 
Dublin.  Carson  sowed  the  wind  in  the  hills 
of  Ulster  and  the  Fenians  went  out  with  bloody 
blades  to  reap  the  whirlwind.  The  signing  of 
the  covenant  in  Belfast  led  indirectly  to  the 


THE  PRESIDENCY  OF  PEARSE        89 

mobilisation  of  St.  Enda's  school.  The  head 
master  became  a  soldier,  a  conspirator,  and 
finally  in  the  dark  of  night  was  elected  a 
president. 

From  that  moment  until  he  faced  the  firing 
squad  he  stood  on  the  edge  of  burning  limelight. 
Every  order  he  gave  made  Irish  history,  and 
every  word  he  wrote  passed  direct  into  the 
dark  scroll  of  Ireland's  story.  It  is  curious 
how  schoolmasters  and  professors  have  played 
more  striking  and  world-stirring  parts  than  the 
professional  earth  and  cloud  compellers  in  this 
war.  There  is  Professor  Wilson.  There  is  an 
old  scholastic  professor  of  Louvain,  who  an- 
swered Bissing  in  deed  as  bravely  as  he  had 
answered  Kant  in  philosophy.  And  then  we 
have  the  head  master  of  St.  Enda's.  When  will 
the  world  be  wise  enough  to  follow  Plato's  ad- 
vice to  make  philosophers  king  ? 

There  is  no  need  to  canonise  or  excoriate 
Pearse.  He  saw  and  took  his  chance.  Living 
under  the  shadow  of  Dublin  Castle,  stung  by 
the  differential  treatment  awarded  to  Ulster 
and  Irish  rebels,  he  and  his  companions  had 
little  occasion  to  think  out  the  international 
problem  from  their  own  premises.  Their  sense 
of  thwarted  nationality  was  so  intense  that 
they  could  not  see  Europe.     And  Europe,  it 


90  THE   IRISH  ISSUE 

seemed,  had  forgotten  that  Ireland  was  a  na- 
tion. CHnging  to  their  broken  tree,  they  could 
not  see  the  wood.  Had  some  miraculous 
change  in  British  statesmanship  assured  Ireland 
of  national  rights  at  the  outbreak  of  war,  it 
might  have  been  otherwise,  for  Pearse  was 
susceptible  to  the  miraculous.  But  it  seemed 
that  the  mighty  wings  of  the  empire  rushing 
to  war  were  extinguishing  the  Irish  lamp.  And 
Nationalists,  in  their  determination  to  keep 
alight  the  flicker  of  Gaelic  Ireland  upon  their 
own  hearth  could  not  trouble  about  the  forest- 
fire  outside. 

So  the  revolt  took  place.  It  was  inevitable. 
It  was  not  glorious  but  it  was  salutary.  It 
was  the  only  important  event  in  Ireland  since 
the  death  of  Parnell.  It  seemed  as  though 
Dublin  had  risen  like  a  hysterical  woman  and 
stabbed  a  man  in  armour  with  a  broken  bod- 
kin to  avenge  some  far-off  unhappy  thing,  and 
was  summarily  suppressed.  There  were  things 
done  on  both  sides  which  both  would  prefer  to 
forget,  but  which  the  politicians  on  either  side 
will  never  allow  to  rest.  It  was  a  rough-and- 
tumble  duel  with  as  much  honour  and  chivalry 
involved  as  either  side  care  to  extract.  It  was 
brief,  unbrotherly,  sudden,  and  spectacular.  It 
was  not  war — but  it  made  history.     There  were 


THE   PRESIDENCY  OF   PEARSE        91 

genuine  traits  of  humanity  shown.  Soldiers 
called  on  Sinn  Feiners  to  clear  out  before  they 
turned  on  their  machine-guns.  A  Sinn  Feiner 
recognised  an  officer  on  whom  he  had  fired  and 
ran  out  to  apologise.  Pearse  was  insistent  on 
the  kind  treatment  of  the  prisoners.  It  was 
his  intense  susceptibility  to  the  suffering  of 
others  that  brought  the  rebellion  to  a  close. 
He  had  steeled  his  heart  to  the  killing  of  sol- 
diers or  of  his  followers,  but  he  was  broken  down 
by  rumours  that  civilians  were  enduring  the 
feine  forte  et  dure  of  war.  He  surrendered  and 
caused  others  to  surrender,  "in  order  to  pre- 
vent the  further  slaughter  of  unarmed  people." 
Otherwise  the  revolt  might  have  lasted  for 
weeks.  His  heart  was  stronger  than  his  head. 
But  in  surrendering  he  was  unconsciously  put- 
ting the  authorities  into  a  quandary.  Were 
they  to  be  executed  as  criminals  or  imprisoned 
as  prisoners  of  war  '^  Up  to  this  moment  there 
had  only  been  a  half -sympathetic,  half-sorrow- 
ful feeling  for  men  waging  a  fight  that  was  lost 
before  it  was  begun.  As  for  those  who  were 
killed  in  the  fighting,  they  slew  and  were  slain. 
They  took  up  the  sword  and  perished  by  the 
sword.  But  the  execution  of  Pearse  and  his 
fellows,  however  approved  by  the  authorities, 
was  playing  into  their  dead  hands.     What  they 


9^  THE   IRISH  ISSUE 

were  unable  to  achieve  alive  they  had  succeeded 
in  doing  dead.     They  had  roused  Ireland ! 

England  might  have  done  otherwise  than 
exact  her  pound  of  flesh,  if  she  had  been  wise, 
but  to  individual  officials  it  must  have  seemed 
impossible.  With  their  limited  outlook  they 
could  not  be  expected  to  understand  what  these 
men  meant  to  Ireland  or  in  the  world  at  large. 
Like  Pontius  Pilate,  or  the  American  authorities 
who  hung  John  Brown,  they  could  but  con- 
demn idealists  who  were  also  revolutionary. 
John  Brown  had  hurled  himself  against  slavery 
as  Pearse  had  hurled  himself  against  British 
rule  in  Ireland.  There  is  nothing  in  the  Bible 
against  either  of  those  institutions,  against  slav- 
ery or  imperialism,  but  the  consensus  of  civili- 
sation has  long  decided  that  they  are  obsolete, 
in  spite  of  all  arguments  as  to  the  benefits  of 
slave  or  imperial  power. 

Pearse  can  only  have  died  in  the  best  of  hu- 
mour with  life,  for  it  had  given  him  the  death 
he  had  lived  for.  Seldom,  indeed,  it  comes  to 
a  dreamer  to  find  himself  in  the  midst  of  his 
dream  coming  true.  He  cannot  even  have  felt 
out  of  humour  with  the  hereditary  enemy,  for 
it,  too,  had  given  him  the  tragedy  and  the  set- 
ting of  the  tragedy  he  had  so  often  imagined 
in  his  mind's  eye,  even  unto  artillery  and  a 


THE  PRESIDENCY  OF  PEARSE        93 

blazing  capital.  He  may  have  felt  a  little  out 
of  humour  with  the  Irish,  for  they  had  not  re- 
sponded to  his  appeal.  Even  Dublin  was  out 
of  sympathy  with  his  revolt,  until  it  was  all 
over.  But  for  a  century  he  will  be  the  national 
hero  of  Ireland.  In  time  his  relics  will  be 
picked  out  of  the  quicklime,  and  his  fellow- 
townsmen  will  even  give  him  a  statue,  though 
there  is  no  doubt  that  he  would  be  more  grate- 
ful for  the  quicklime  than  for  a  crumbling 
image.  For  the  shroud  of  quicklime  makes 
immortal  raiment — in  Ireland. 


VII 

THE  KILLING  OF  KETTLE 

In  the  great  flood  of  literature  which  has  car- 
ried the  names  of  the  Sinn  Feiners  out  of  the 
obscurity  of  their  local  fight  into  written  his- 
tory, there  has  been  slight  mention  of  Tom 
Kettle.  Yet  of  all  the  Young  Irelanders  he 
was  perhaps  the  most  brilliant,  and  his  end 
was  certainly  more  tragic,  for  he  passed  from 
the  scene  of  his  beloved  Dublin,  lying  with  her 
heart  blown  out,  to  his  own  grave  in  the  less 
dramatic  but  more  terrible  field  of  France. 

He  was  ever  the  brilliant  boy,  the  coming 
man  of  his  generation  in  Ireland.  All  his  gifts, 
impulses,  and  ambitions  were  of  the  highest 
order.  In  his  short,  well-rounded  life  he  made 
good  equally  as  a  ballad  writer,  as  a  member 
of  Parliament,  as  a  professor  of  political  econ- 
omy, and  finally  as  a  soldier.  He  was  the  per- 
fect type  of  the  Dubliner  in  the  new  century. 
He  was  a  pessimist  in  philosophy  and  an  opti- 
mist in  politics.  Of  the  crowd  of  young  men 
who  were  trying  to  sound  the  new  channels  or 

94 


THE   KILLING  OF   KETTLE        95 

sipping  the  new  wines  of  Irish  Hfe,  some  were 
poets  and  some  were  dreamers.  Kettle  was 
both,  and  he  was  in  addition  a  first-rate  meta- 
physician. He  had  plunged  deep  in  Schopen- 
hauer and  had  dallied  with  Nietzsche,  whom  he 
attacked  with  passionate  violence  in  his  last 
book.  His  charm  was  that  he  w^as  a  primitive 
Celt  grafted  to  modern  culture.  He  had  read 
Nietzsche  before  most  of  his  modern  assailants 
had  even  heard  his  name  as  a  symbol,  and  ad- 
mitted that  "  he  made  German  dance  as  before 
him  only  Heine  had  done."  Nevertheless  he 
summed  him  up  as  *'the  mysticism  of  the  mad- 
house" and  the  "metaphysics  of  bullying." 
But  the  dark  philosophers  had  steeped  his  soul, 
and  there  were  moments  of  wrestling  and  de- 
spair. It  was  a  miracle  of  intellect  that  he 
kept  the  Catholic  faith. 

Ireland  is  one  of  the  few  countries  where 
successful  examinations  can  lead  to  a  political 
career.  For  some  abstruse  reason  the  pale  and 
nerve-racked  student  was  pressed  into  the  ranks 
of  the  Irish  party.  Overwork,  oversensitive- 
ness,  and  his  peculiar  brilliance  of  mind  made 
him  in  many  ways  unsuited  for  the  rough  work 
of  Westminster,  where  sordidness  is  the  only 
relief  from  the  background  of  tedium.  His 
speech   was    quick   and   nervous,    but   it   was 


96  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

packed  with  thought,  and  occasionally  there 
rose  a  bitter  sense  of  fun  to  play  upon  the  sur- 
face. As  a  speaker  in  the  debates  he  could 
always  claim  Mr.  Balfour  as  a  ready  listener. 
The  bons  mots  that  crept  into  all  he  said  were 
reminiscent  of  the  age  of  wits.  When  the 
tariff  reformers  thrust  the  unwilling  and  un- 
witting Mr.  Balfour  to  the  front,  he  remarked: 
"They  have  nailed  their  leader  to  the  mast." 
As  brilliant  was  his  distinction  between  the 
two  great  parties  in  English  politics.  *'When 
in  office  the  Liberals  forget  their  principles  and 
the  Tories  remember  their  friends."  And  his 
conversation  was  built  up  out  of  similar  stuff. 
He  possessed  that  pretty  mordancy  that  flicks 
conversation  along  like  a  tennis-ball.  England 
could  not  understand  and  even  Ireland,  alive 
to  genius,  had  not  fully  appreciated  this  por- 
tent in  the  unimaginative  ranks  of  the  party. 
The  Irish  party  is  too  clever  or  is  understood 
to  be  too  clever  for  the  English  parties,  but 
Kettle  was  too  clever  for  the  Irish  party.  His 
cleverness  was  a  little  too  much  out  of  the 
ordinary,  and  he  was  given  a  pedestal,  but 
equally  a  dead  weight  to  his  winged  feet  in  the 
professorship  of  economics  at  the  new  Univer- 
sity of  Ireland.  But  the  '* dismal  science"  was 
not  dismal  in  his  keeping.     In  intellectual  Dub- 


THE   KILLING   OF  KETTLE        97 

lin  he  came  into  his  own.  It  was  becoming 
more  and  more  the  resurgent  capital  of  the 
country  at  that  time.  By  right  of  intellect 
Dublin  was  asserting  that  position  which  in 
political  fact  she  did  not  possess.  Shortly  be- 
fore the  outbreak  of  the  war  it  was  possible  to 
spend  a  morning  at  St.  Enda's  School  and  dis- 
cuss the  ideals  of  Irish  education  with  Pearse 
and  MacDonagh,  to  catch  a  vivid  minute  with 
George  Russell  in  Plunkett  House,  in  the  after- 
noon to  see  Yeats  and  Lady  Gregory  moving 
down  the  quays  to  a  rehearsal  at  the  Abbey 
Theatre,  and  in  the  evening  to  hear  a  Synge 
play  and  pass  a  late  hour  with  Kettle.  An 
ambrosian  night  and  day. 

Kettle  soon  formed  a  circle  in  which  young 
men  sharpened  their  wits  or  darkened  their 
philosophies.  For  he  was  one  of  those  terrible 
pessimists,  who  are  always  saying  dark  sayings 
in  an  illuminating  way.  He  was  most  upset- 
ting in  his  constructive  moments  and  vice 
versa.  On  the  whole  he  was  the  greatest  loss 
in  his  time  endured  by  the  intelligentia  of  Ire- 
land. 

He  seemed  destined  to  fulfil  a  vital  but  never 
quite  attainable  part  in  Irish  life,  to  reconcile 
the  old  generation  of  Parliamentarians  with  the 
new  Ireland  which  had  arisen  to  demand  bet- 


98  THE   IRISH   ISSUE 

ter  things.  His  father,  Andrew  Kettle,  was 
one  of  the  veterans  of  the  Parnelhte  movement, 
and  his  friends  were  the  Young  Irelanders,  who 
were  already  breaking  in  sympathy  with  the 
Irish  party.  He  alone  could  have  wrought  a 
reconciliation  and  possibly  averted  the  terrible 
revolt  which  buried  so  much  promise  in  the 
ruins  of  Dublin.  He  was  early  aware  of  the 
restiveness  of  the  young  men  and  of  the  neces- 
sity of  supplying  them  with  a  place  in  the 
National  movement  before  they  chose  one  for 
themselves.  He  became  the  first  president  of 
the  "Young  Ireland"  branch  of  the  United 
Irish  League,  a  brave  attempt  to  avert  the  im- 
pending destiny.  Again  he  was  chairman  of 
the  committee,  which  endeavoured  to  establish 
peace  during  the  great  Dublin  strike,  and  once 
more  found  himself  treading  between  the  very 
meshes  of  Fate,  for  the  unsettled  strike  proved 
to  be  the  seed  of  the  rising.  He  was  trying 
to  bring  together  threads  that  the  Inexorable 
Shears  had  already  divided. 

Release  from  Parliament  afforded  him  further 
leisure  for  literature,  for  which  we  may  be 
thankful.  We  have  only  his  words  now, 
whether  in  prose  or  verse,  to  remember  him 
by.  But  his  poems  have  a  different  ring  to 
that  we  usually  associate  with  the  Green  Muse. 


THE  KILLING  OF   KETTLE        99 

There  was  a  tenderness  and  a  deep  sentiment 
in  all  that  he  wrote,  though  his  wine  was  stirred 
with  an  iron  spoon  and  his  pen  distilled  a  drop 
of  gall  on  the  sweet  froth.  As  a  professional 
pessimist  and  amateur  optimist  he  probed 
depths  and  pricked  superficialities  in  a  way 
that  was  disturbing  to  the  ordinary  reader. 
Themes  of  doom  and  the  vagaries  of  disaster 
pursued  him  as  one  who  was  not  unglad  of 
them.  Tragedy  he  could  endure  but  not  ennui. 
He  had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  twenti- 
eth century,  "which  cuts  such  a  fine  figure  in 
encyclopaedias  is  most  familiarly  known  to  the 
majority  of  its  children  as  a  new  kind  of  head- 
ache." Nevertheless  as  an  Irishman  he  was 
always  true  to  the  sacred  and  ever-failing  cause 
of  Utopia.  He  was  hopeful  that  as  Ireland  was 
a  country,  where  the  unexpected  invariably 
happened,  that  something  really  good  might 
occur.  And  he  wrote:  "That  a  wise  man  soon 
grows  disillusioned  of  disillusionment.  Cyni- 
cism is  in  life  the  last  treachery." 

He  was  always  fighting  for  lost  causes,  but 
he  was  never  at  a  loss  in  thought  or  speech. 
He  had  a  wonderful  gift  of  spontaneity.  He 
could  always  say  something  that  was  already 
unexpressed  in  the  minds  of  others.  He  took 
the  political  platform  with  a  serious  apprecia- 


100  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

tion  of  the  wit  of  his  hillside  constituents.  He 
could  be  sarcastic,  ironic,  amusing,  and  com- 
plimentary by  turns.  Once  he  was  met  by  a 
poor  populace  who  had  improvised  a  mountain 
band  and  some  home-made  torches  of  turf  and 
paraffin.  "Friends,"  quoth  Kettle,  ''you  have 
met  us  with  God's  two  best  gifts  to  man,  fire 
and  music  !"  What  more  could  be  asked  ?  It 
was  as  instantaneous  as  graceful. 

In  political  balladry  he  could  not  be  beaten. 
He  replied  to  the  Jingo  effusions  with  which 
Kipling  and  Watson  stepped  into  the  Irish 
arena  with  an  amusing  sarcasm.  He  ridiculed 
Kipling  for  trying  to  put  the  sunrise  out  with 
"a  bucketful  of  Boyne."  But  a  savage  in- 
dignation could  tear  his  breast,  and  nothing 
equalled  his  outburst  when  he  compared  Dub- 
lin's torchlight  reception  of  Asquith  with  the 
last  days  of  Parnell: 

"As  you  filled  your  streets  with  your  comic  Pentecost 
And  the  little  English  went  by  and  the  lights  grew  dim. 
We  dumb  in  the  shouting  crowd,  we  thought  of  Him ! " 

Only  Kettle  could  have  divined  a  ''comic  Pen- 
tecost" in  that  orgy  of  tongues  and  torches. 
The  war  came,  and  Kettle  took  the  point  of 
view  not  of  the  Britisher  or  the  Sinn  Feiner, 
but  of  the  European.     He  immediately  stated: 


THE   KILLING   OF  KETTLE      101 

France  is  right  now  as  she  was  wrong  in  1870.  England  is 
right  now  as  she  was  wrong  in  the  Boer  War.  Russia  is  right 
now  as  she  was  wrong  on  Bloody  Sunday. 

The  interest  of  Kettle  was  that  he  was  an 
international  Nationalist,  which  is  as  rare  in 
Ireland  as  elsewhere.  Much  as  he  loved  Ire- 
land he  also  appreciated  Europe,  and  he  would 
not  willingly  allow  western  civilisation  to  be 
twisted  from  its  hinges  without  some  protest  be- 
ing made  by  Irishmen.  Six  years  before  the  war 
he  had  laid  down:  "My  only  programme  for 
Ireland  consists  in  equal  parts  of  Home  Rule 
and  the  Ten  Commandments.  My  only  coun- 
sel to  Ireland  is  that  to  become  deeply  Irish  she 
must  become  European." 

Young  Ireland  did  not  follow  him  into  the 
trenches,  but  he  never  felt  he  had  made  a  mis- 
take. Yet  his  heart  never  left  those  who  had 
followed  other  counsels  than  his.  He  appeared 
to  give  evidence  in  favour  of  John  McNeill 
at  his  court  martial,  and  his  last  request  from 
France  before  he  fell  was  a  plea  to  release  the 
prisoners  of  Easter  week.  Out  of  the  shadow 
of  death  he  cried: 

In  the  name,  and  by  the  seal,  of  the  blood  given  in  the  last 
two  years  I  ask  for  Colonial  Home  Rule  for  Ireland,  a  thing 
essential  in  itself,  and  essential  as  a  prologue  to  the  recon- 
struction of  the  Empire.     Ulster  will  agree. 


102  THE  IRISH   ISSUE 

And  I  ask  for  the  immediate  withdrawal  of  martial  law  in 
Ireland,  and  an  amnesty  for  all  Sinn  Fein  prisoners.  If  this 
war  has  taught  us  anything  it  is  that  great  things  can  be  done 
only  in  a  great  way. 

He  died  and  the  prisoners  were  set  at  liberty. 
Many  of  them  had  bitterly  maligned  him  as  a 
platform  soldier.  He  could  always  have  had 
an  appointment  on  a  staff  or  at  the  base,  but 
he  insisted  on  his  due  and  decent  wage  of 
death.  Like  Willie  Redmond  later,  he  must 
have  felt  that  a  time  had  come  to  die,  when 
the  angry  and  mocking  cries  of  his  own  people 
reached  them  overseas.  Bravely  they  both 
died  and  perhaps  with  a  smile  of  bitterness  at 
the  end,  as  men  encompassed  by  the  treachery 
of  their  high  doom,  but  whatever  bitterness 
they  felt  they  kept  for  themselves,  and  their 
smile  was  for  the  Ireland  out  of  whose  earth 
they  were  to  lie. 

Kettle  must  have  suffered  terribly  between 
the  Dublin  rising  and  his  death.  The  mur- 
dered Sheehy  Skeffington  was  his  brother-in- 
law.  Others  of  the  executed  were  his  friends. 
To  his  sensitive  nature  death  in  France  must 
have  seemed  sweeter  than  continuing  to  live  in 
Dublin  of  haunted  and  unhappy  memory  for 
all  his  generation  at  least.  From  the  atmos- 
phere of   intrigue,    meanness,  and  misery   he 


THE   KILLING   OF   KETTLE      103 

was  doubtless  not  sorry  to  get  away  into  the 
cleaner  winds  of  war.  He  died  for  no  imperi- 
alist concept,  for  no  fatuous  jingoism.  Politics 
and  all  the  shams  and  disappointments  of  life 
had  slipped  from  his  lithe  soul.  He  had  put 
away  small  things  and  his  last  and  death- wrung 
demand  was  that  great  things  should  be  done 
in  a  great  way  in  Ireland.  The  failure  of  the 
little  ways  had  proved  so  complete.  He  did 
not  resent  the  littleness  that  had  dogged  his 
life  and  left  him  lonely  at  the  last,  but  he  re- 
called and  hated  the  pettiness  and  duplicity 
that  had  injured  Ireland,  that  had  fooled  her 
leaders  and  led  out  her  children  on  false  prom- 
ises. Out  of  the  greatness  of  war  he  asked 
for  that  touch  of  greatness  by  which  alone  great 
things  are  achieved.  Like  a  thousand  ardent 
spirits  in  Ireland  at  the  time  he  had  been 
ready  to  leap  to  a  new  era  by  the  bridge  of 
great  things  greatly  done,  even  if  the  bridge 
was  to  be  the  bridge  of  death. 

Disappointed  but  undismayed.  Kettle  stood 
with  nought  but  a  mystic's  dream  between  him 
and  the  great  horror.  He  felt  afraid  for  Ire- 
land but  not  for  himself.  Then  indeed  the 
irony  of  his  life  and  the  bitterness  of  it  all 
must  have  come  home  to  him.  Stripped  of 
all,   his   career,   his   chair,   his   ambitions,   his 


104  THE   IRISH   ISSUE 

friends  and  his  lovers,  with  his  back  turned  to 
Ireland  and  his  heart  turned  from  England,  he 
threw  himself  over  the  mighty  gulf,  where  at 
least  he  could  be  sure  that  all  things  good  or 
evil  were  on  the  great  scale  that  his  soul  re- 
quired. With  earth's  littlenesses  he  was  done. 
So  amid  the  wreckage  of  a  world  and  the 
carnage  of  a  continent  fell  Tom  Kettle.  Many 
when  they  heard  that  tragic  news  all  over  that 
Irish  world,  on  which  the  sun  never  sets,  must 
have  remembered  the  grief  of  Gavan  Duffy 
when  confronted  by  the  death  of  Thomas  Davis 
in  his  prime.  Ireland  has  never  ceased  to  be 
haunted  by  the  promise,  the  pathos,  and  the 
possibility  of  that  life  and  death,  and  now  men 
will  look  back  on  Kettle  likewise.  Irishmen 
will  think  of  him  with  his  gentle  brother-in-law, 
Sheehy  Skefhngton,  as  two  intellectuals,  who 
after  their  manner  and  their  light  wrought  and 
thought  and  died  for  Ireland.  What  boots  it 
if  one  was  murdered  by  a  British  officer  and  the 
other  was  slain  in  honourable  warfare  by  Ger- 
mans? To  Ireland  they  are  both  lovable  and 
in  Irish  mind  their  memory  shall  not  fail. 
What  though  Skeffington  sleeps  nigh  Parnell 
and  O'Connell  in  holy  Glasnevin,  while  Kettle's 
ashes  are  left  in  the  shell-torn  trenches  of 
France?     Ireland  knows  that  they  were  both 


THE  KILLING  OF  KETTLE      105 

men  of  peace  and  that  they  both  offered  their 
Hves  for  her.  In  death  they  were  divided,  but 
in  the  heart  of  Ireland  they  are  as  one. 

There  is  a  beautiful  picture  by  Burne-Jones 
of  the  knight  who  met  and  yet  forgave  his 
worst  enemy.  As  he  turned  aside  he  knelt 
before  a  wooden  crucifix  of  the  wayside,  and 
the  figure  on  the  cross  bent  to  kiss  him.  Who 
can  doubt  that  Kettle,  who  had  forgiven  the 
English,  who  had  murdered  his  brother,  and 
went  to  France  to  defend  the  homes  of  English- 
women from  outrage  and  sudden  death — that 
as  he  passed  some  village  Calvary  he  was  not 
suffered  to  pass  comfortless  upon  his  way. 


VIII 

CARSON  AND   CASEMENT 

No  pair  of  Irish  names  have  been  more  cir- 
culated, contrasted,  and  queried  than  those  of 
Carson  and  Casement.  For  months  in  the  past 
and  now  probably  for  years  in  the  future  the 
pohtician  will  batten  on  their  antithesis  and 
the  pamphleteer  parade  the  iniquity  of  the  one 
or  the  righteousness  of  the  other,  as  he  may 
happen  to  view  them.  The  capital  to  be  made 
out  of  their  exploits  is  tempting  to  the  partisan 
but  of  doubtful  interest  to  their  country.  How 
long  is  Ireland  to  be  forced  to  bandy  their 
names  as  catchwords  ? 

No  more  considerable  omen  of  good-will  and 
common  sense  could  have  been  found  in  the 
Dublin  convention  than  the  omission  of  both 
names  from  the  list  of  members.  It  was  as 
well,  for  their  names  are  as  firebrands  and  their 
memories  make  men  see  red.  For  obvious 
reasons  neither  was  invited  to  the  gathering. 
Since  their  military  escapades  on  Irish  soil  one 
has  gone  into  the  next  world?  while  the  other 

106 


CARSON  AND   CASEMENT       107 

went  into  the  next  Cabinet,  To  all  practical 
purpose  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  both  have  passed 
for  ever  from  the  Irish  scene,  leaving  only  the 
wake  and  wash  of  the  tragic  parts  each  tried 
to  essay  gradually  to  settle.  Their  careers  are 
already  legendary  and  their  names  symbols. 
Let  them  both  be  as  ghosts  and  their  future 
influences  as  phantasmata  vainly  crying  out 
of  the  past.  Neither  could  have  appeared  at 
the  Dublin  convention  except  in  the  guise  of  a 
veritable  spectre  at  the  feast  of  good- will.  All 
that  is  moderate  and  fair-minded  in  Ireland  has 
decided  to  leave  their  achievements  with  the 
dead,  no  longer  to  return  and  plague  the  living. 
The  time  is  approaching  when  historians 
must  take  the  place  of  journalists  and  deal 
with  Irish  reputations  as  frigidly  and  impar- 
tially as  the  officials  of  a  German  corpse-sta- 
tion deal  with  their  callous  duties.  At  present 
both  Carson  and  Casement  hang  In  the  glim- 
mer of  a  pseudo-apotheosis,  Carson  as  the  in- 
carnate and  incomparable  soul  of  Ulster,  and 
Casement  as  the  martyr  of  a  race  of  which, 
indeed,  the  majority  had  not  heard  his  name 
before  his  arrest.  The  popular  view  of  both 
is  probably  mistaken.  Neither  really  repre- 
sented what  they  believed  themselves  to  repre- 
sent.    Casement  was  an  Ulsterman  and  the 


108  THE   IRISH   ISSUE 

exact  type  of  adventurous  and  quixotic  official 
that  turns  up  in  English  bureaucracy,  suffi= 
ciently  to  persuade  most  foreigners  that  all 
Englishmen  are  insane.  Carson  was  also  an 
adventurer,  but  a  Galway  boy,  who  only  took 
up  the  Orange  cause  as  Casement  took  up 
Fenianism  late  in  life.  Each  had  already  made 
his  reputation  and  very  good  reputations,  one 
at  the  bar  and  the  other  in  the  consular  service. 
But  the  Irish  casino  tempted  them  and  both 
set  out  to  play  for  exceedingly  great  stakes. 

Though  history  will  probably  decide  that 
each  lost,  they  acquired  a  world-wide  notoriety, 
composed  for  them  equally  by  the  execration 
and  adulation  of  the  press.  In  America  Carson 
is  thought  of  as  the  cold,  lantern-jawed  Junker, 
whose  power  and  pull  enabled  him  to  import 
arms  into  Ulster  without  incurring  any  more 
serious  consequences  than  being  caged  in  the 
Cabinet,  while  Casement  is  arrayed  as  the  fer- 
vid Celt  who  followed  his  example,  but  was 
arrested  and  hung  before  he  could  get  a  single 
gun  into  Ireland. 

Cool  students  of  Irish  history  will  not  see 
much  difference  between  them  as  conspirators, 
except  that  one  was  wholly  disastrous  to  him- 
self, while  the  other  came  near  to  being  disas- 
trous to  his  whole  country.     To  Irishmen  their 


CARSON  AND   CASEMENT       109 

actions  were  not  incomprehensible.  Each  of 
them  was  in  his  way  playing  the  great  game 
that  never  ends  on  Irish  soil.  The  game  that 
is  never  won,  but  fascinates  its  players.  They 
made  themselves  the  pivots  of  ancestral  pas- 
sions and  immemorial  hatreds,  and  as  pivots 
they  were  responsible  for  automatically  un- 
loosening fatalities  that  proved  beyond  their 
control. 

The  civilised  world  was  amazed  and  amused 
when  Carson  armed  his  followers.  The  Na- 
tionalists were  not  shocked,  for  they  knew  he 
was  playing  for  high  stakes,  and  they  rather 
admired  the  chances  he  had  taken  in  such 
devil-care  fashion.  If  it  had  been  for  his  coun- 
try that  he  was  acting  and  not  for  the  sake 
of  a  broken-down  English  party  he  would  have 
become  a  national  hero.  Even  so,  the  Fenians 
bless  his  name  for  having  made  it  possible  for 
them  to  acquire  the  munitions  and  induce  the 
conditions  that  made  the  Dublin  revolt.  0 
felix  culpa! 

Some  of  them  it  is  believed  even  assisted  his 
gun-running  in  the  hope  of  trouble.  They 
knew  that  he  was  taking  up  two-edged  weap- 
ons, and  that  he  was  sowing  a  w^ind  that  might 
just  as  easily  whirl  him  away  as  Redmond  or 
themselves.     Time  has  shown  that  they  were 


110  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

correct.  The  interest  taken  in  liis  exploit  was 
not  confined  to  Ireland  or  America.  The 
Kaiser  seems  to  have  thought  it  worth  while 
at  one  time  to  obtain  a  first-hand  account  of 
Ulster.  A  little  flattery  doubtless  drew  as 
much  as  he  wanted  to  know,  unless  Carson  was 
shrewder  than  the  Kaiser.  It  would  be  inter- 
esting to  know  the  secret  diagnoses  under  which 
Carson  and  Casement  were  ticketed  in  the 
German  archives.  No  doubt  each  man  was 
appraised  at  his  exact  value  to  the  German 
calculations.  Each  was  watched  and  followed 
all  those  months,  for  neither  side  can  have  been 
quite  certain  of  Casement  until  his  execution, 
and  each  in  his  blindfold,  impetuous  way  played 
the  game  Germany  hoped  of  them.  Which 
served  Germany  best  or  worst  the  calculators 
of  history  will  have  to  decide.  Casement  no 
doubt  served  Germany  in  bringing  about  direct 
relations  between  the  Irish- Americans  and  Ber- 
lin, but  his  failure  to  recruit  Irishmen  for  the 
German  army  made  them  glad  to  get  rid  of 
him.  He  was  thwarted  in  his  attempt  to  post- 
pone the  rising,  but  his  direct  arrival  from 
Germany  obscured  the  sympathy  which  would 
have  met  the  Sinn  Fein  in  a  world  becoming 
more  and  more  suspicious  and  intolerant  of 
German  schemes. 


CARSON  AND   CASEMENT       111 

Carson  and  his  friends  would  seem  to  have 
played  into  the  hands  of  the  German  staff  in 
underlining  the  unique  opportunity  of  entering 
a  war  in  which  England  would  be  too  occupied 
at  home  to  engage.  As  John  Quinn  wrote 
from  America: 

Carson,  Smith  and  the  English  Tories  who  backed  them  are 
more  responsible  for  tlijs  war  than  any  other  body  of  men  in 
the  world  except  the  German  General  Staff.  That  is  the  be- 
lief of  people  in  this  comitry  generally. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  German  staff  can 
never  be  sufficiently  ungrateful  to  the  same  for 
having  unconsciously  lured  them  into  a  disas- 
trous war.  And  as  it  was  probably  the  world's 
last  chance  to  smash  Prussianism,  the  score 
may  stand  quits.  The  most  the  historian  can 
aver  is  that  Carson  made  it  as  tempting  to  the 
Germans  to  go  to  war  as  he  later  made  it  diffi- 
cult for  America  to  enter  earlier  than  she  did. 

Casement's  tragedy  is  still  obscured  in  mys- 
tery. His  play  was  more  difficult  and  daring 
than  that  of  Carson,  and  it  led  to  death  with- 
out at  any  moment  admitting  a  gleam  of  suc- 
cess. The  most  he  could  have  staked  his  ac- 
tion upon  was  that  Germany  would  win  the 
war.  His  whole  career  had  been  eccentric  and 
brilliant.     As  far  as  it  has  ever  been  achieved. 


112  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

he  associated  the  British  consular  service,  which 
is  a  dummy  diplomacy,  with  genius.  He 
dropped  into  it  by  accident,  remained  in  it  out 
of  chivalrous  purposes,  and  passed  out  of  it  not 
into  retirement  but  into  a  frantic  attempt  to 
adjust  the  Irish  problem  by  one  fell  deed. 

His  life,  if  it  is  ever  told,  will  be  no  unin- 
teresting one.  Some  early  trouble  sent  him  to 
sea  and  as  a  young  man  he  served  as  a  purser 
on  the  South  African  Line.  In  this  capacity  he 
was  picked  up  by  Sir  Claude  MacDonnell  and 
made  a  roving  commissioner  in  the  Oil  Rivers. 
Here  he  developed  unusual  capacities  in  deal- 
ing with  the  natives,  and  made  a  number  of 
treaties  which  are  still  in  existence.  He  entered 
to  an  extraordinary  degree  into  native  thought 
and  was  always  as  much  at  pains  to  help  and 
elevate  the  protected  as  to  establish  the  pres- 
tige of  the  protector.  At  times  he  would  dis- 
appear from  civilisation  and  be  absorbed  in  the 
Dark  Continent.  He  received  appointments  at 
Lorenzo  Marques  and  in  the  Congo.  There  he 
threw  himself  into  the  work  of  inquiry  and 
denunciation.  In  doing  so  he  had  to  forfeit 
the  friendship  of  Leopold,  King  of  the  Belgians, 
the  same  monarch  who  had  wished  to  employ 
Gordon  in  his  Congo  scheme.  Gordon  and 
Casement  had  many  points  in  common.     Each 


CARSON  AND   CASEMENT       113 

was  a  religious  mystic  and  far  more  interested  f 
in  religious  work  than  imperialism.  At  one 
time  Casement  seemed  on  the  point  of  throwing 
up  his  position  for  missionary  endeavour.  Like 
Gordon  he  acquired  his  ascendancy  over  the 
native  by  his  detachment  from  wealth  and 
women.  Like  Gordon  he  was  intractable  to 
his  superiors  and  believed  in  a  vaguely  inspired 
mission.  He  had  an  itch  for  fomenting  official 
troubles  with  the  highest  and  noblest  aims  in 
view.  He  was  a  perpetual  crusader  on  behalf 
of  the  under  dog,  wherever  and  of  whatever 
colour  he  found  him.  Had  he  died  in  Africa 
he  would  have  left  a  legend  that  would  be  cher- 
ished by  Englishmen  to-day.  "Congo"  Case- 
ment would  be  mentioned  in  a  breath  with 
"Chinese"  Gordon,  England's  martyrs  in  Af- 
rica. It  is  very  curious  that  each  took  up  one 
very  hoary  and  evil  cause  in  utter  blindness 
of  what  it  meant.  Gordon's  military  reputa- 
tion was  gained  in  upholding  the  dead  hand  of 
the  Manchus,  and  Casement  by  an  even  more 
fantastic  step  passed  over  to  the  Germany, 
whose  methods  among  the  natives  he  had  had 
suflScient  cause  to  detest. 

Casement  only  went  on  the  Irish  platform 
in  the  year  before  the  outbreak  of  war.  Then 
it  was  to  declare  that  "There  is  only  one  Ire- 


114  THE   IRISH   ISSUE 

land,  one  acid  indivisible.  And  the  more  we 
love  Ulster  the  more  surely  we  should  love 
that  greater  Ireland  that  owns  us  all." 

To  his  love  of  Ireland  was  added  that  fatal 
sense  of  thwarted  achievement,  which  has  em- 
bittered so  many  Irish  careers.  When  the 
Cunard  liners  left  Queenstown  out  of  their  call. 
Casement  negotiated  for  the  Hamburg- Ameri- 
can Line  to  take  their  place,  but  he  was  under- 
cut by  a  move  from  the  British  Foreign  Office. 
Henceforth  the  path  to  German  intrigue  was 
easy  and  he  set  himself  among  those  who  were 
trying  to  wean  the  American  sympathies  occu- 
pied by  England  to  Germany.  He  claimed  that 
England  was  doing  just  what  it  is  apparent 
that  Germany  was.  "Every  tool  of  her  di- 
plomacy, polished  and  unpolished,  from  the 
trained  envoy  to  the  minor  poet  has  been  tried 
in  turn." 

In  Germany  he  took  the  disastrous  step  of 
trying  to  enlist  Irish  prisoners  in  an  Irish  regi- 
ment for  the  Kaiser.  This  and  the  alleged 
ill-treatment,  which  befell  the  Irish  prisoners 
who  refused  his 'proffer,  led  to  his  execution. 
Everything  repeats  itself  in  Irish  history,  and 
it  is  curious  to  read  in  the  diary  of  Captain 
Milman,  who  was  taken  prisoner  in  the  Penin- 
sular War,  as  follows: 


CARSON  AND  CASEMENT       115 

Burgos  1809.  A  sergeant  of  the  Irish  Brigade  who  had 
belonged  to  our  50th  and  deserted,  an  Irishman  by  birth, 
came  into  the  prison  to  drink  with  a  parcel  of  soldiers'  wives 
and  wanted  to  enlist  the  prisoners  into  the  French  service. 

Passing  from  cold  facts  one  is  bound  to  re- 
cord Casement's  solemn  assertion  that  he  was 
not  responsible  for  any  ill-treatment  to  those 
who  refused  his  offer.  Nevertheless  the  two 
Irish  prisoners  who  were  shot  were  not  less 
martyrs  than  he.  It  has  always  been  Ireland's 
fate  to  tempt  those  who  love  her  most  into 
disaster  nethermost.  On  this  occasion  it  seems 
possible  to  say  in  the  words  of  Shakespeare's 
"Cymbeline"  that  she 

"let  her  beauty 
look  through  a  casement  to  allure  false  hearts.'* 

His  action  in  going  to  Germany  was  dictated 
more  by  despair  at  the  plight  of  the  Irish  cause 
than  by  desire  of  German  triumph.  In  a  letter 
to  John  Quinn  from  Germany  he  wrote: 

I  should  have  thought  it  was  abundantly  clear  that  I  was  not 
acting  for  Germany  but  for  Ireland.  No  action  of  mine  since 
I  arrived  in  Europe  has  been  an  act  for  Germany,  any  more 
than,  say,  to  cite  a  very  notable  case,  Wolfe  Tone  acted  for 
France  when  he  tried  to  get  French  help  for  Ireland  in  a  pre- 
vious great  Continental  war. 


116  THE   IRISH  ISSUE 

Casement  cannot  be  called  a  lunatic.  He 
was  suffering  from  one  overwhelming  and  ab- 
sorbing idea,  on  which  his  mind  was  not  only 
truly  and  terribly  set,  but  even  racked.  He 
felt  that  an  injustice  had  been  committed 
against  Ireland  by  political  sleight  of  hand. 
He  felt  that  Ireland  had  been  side-tracked  to 
her  annihilation  as  a  political  entity,  for  he 
was  accurately  informed  of  Germany's  power 
to  resist  and  crush  any  small  nations  thrown 
in  her  track.  He  determined  to  forestall  any 
possible  invasion  of  Ireland  by  obtaining  a 
declaration  of  German  good  behaviour  should 
troops  ever  reach  the  country.  It  was  as  safe 
a  declaration  for  the  German  Foreign  Office  to 
make  as  one  promising  immunity  to  the  public 
buildings  in  Nova  Zembla.  What  is  not  known 
is  whether  the  German  War  Office  made  any 
illusionary  promise  to  send  troops  to  fight  for 
an  Irish  republic.  On  the  whole  the  Dublin 
rising  seems  to  have  been  only  vaguely  con- 
nected with  any  direct  German  plan.  It  would 
have  taken  place  under  the  circumstances,  any- 
how. If  there  was  a  bargain,  which  heaven 
forbid,  it  was  a  very  unequal  one.  The  Sinn 
Feiners  risked  and  gave  everything.  The  Ger- 
mans only  jeopardised  a  tubful  of  old  Russian 
rifles.     Casement  was  literally  marooned  with 


CARSON  AND   CASEMENT       117 

a  handful  of  men«  American  friends,  aware 
that  he  was  sick,  were  anxious  that  he  should 
be  retained  in  Germany  until  the  end  of  the 
war.  There  is  some  reason  to  believe  that  he 
intended  to  postpone  the  rising,  but  was  de- 
layed by  premeditated  repairs  and  delays  to 
the  submarine  in  which  he  had  embarked. 
Neither  the  German  nor  English  authorities 
allowed  him  to  communicate  in  time  with  the 
Sinn  Feiners.  The  rest  is  history.  It  was  not 
for  the  defence  of  the  realm  so  much  as  to 
afford  a  Berlin  holiday  that  the  subsequent 
executions  took  place. 

Casement  had  foreseen  and  welcomed  his 
death.  He  was  given  the  opportunity  of  play- 
ing his  part  to  the  bitter  end.  In  order  to  call 
world  attention  to  the  Irish  question  he  had 
passed  out  of  his  way,  out  of  his  peace,  out  of 
his  retirement,  out  of  his  rank,  out  of  his  coun- 
try, and  out  of  his  life.  Against  such  Quixotes 
no  bribery,  no  persuasion  can  avail.  He  had 
lived  his  ideal  of  Wolfe  Tone  as  far  as  it  could 
be  lived  under  modern  conditions.  With  de- 
liberate haste  and  wilful  ecstasy  he  threw  him- 
self into  the  seething  pot  on  the  chance  of  stir- 
ring up  an  eddy,  and  he  fell  straight  to  the 
bottom  of  the  boiling  broth.  Leagued  only 
with  his  own  desperation,  he  attempted  the 


118  THE   IRISH   ISSUE 

impossible  and  bearded  the  great  Power  he  had 
long  contemplated  in  his  dreams  as  a  Cartha- 
ginian might  have  seen  the  Roman  Empire. 
When  he  wrote  the  strange  lines: 

"Eagle  of  Eryx!  when  the  iEgatian  shoal 
Rolled  westward  all  the  hopes  that  Haniio  wrecked. 
With  mighty  wing  unwearying,  didst  thou 
Seek  far  beyond  the  wolf's  grim  protocol. 
Within  the  Iberian  sunset  faintly  specked 
A  rock  where  Punic  faith  should  bide  its  vow" — 

was  he  thinking  of  the  rock  above  Cave  Hill, 
where  Tone  made  his  vow  to  free  Ireland? 
Was  the  wolf's  grim  protocol  the  British  Em- 
pire ?  Was  it  a  Hibernian  sunset  clothed  with 
sanguine  ruin  against  which  he  saw  himself 
faintly  specked?  It  is  a  poem  which  lends  it- 
self to  the  mystic  interpretation  of  Casement, 
which  is  only  charitable  when  his  political  one 
is  condemned. 


Part   II 


IX 

THE  WINNING  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES 

To  many,  not  excluding  herself,  America  has 
shown  herself  an  unfathomable  problem.  Es- 
pecially has  it  been  so  during  the  Great  War, 
when  reliable  guides  were  able  to  dispute 
whether  she  was  pro-Ally  or  pro-German,  and 
the  only  destiny  that  the  majority  of  her  chil- 
dren could  agree  upon  was  that  she  had  no  des- 
tiny, at  least  no  destiny  that  would  make  her 
partner  or  decider  in  the  European  debacle. 
To  herself  she  was  the  great  unworried,  un- 
wearied, unwarrior  country,  desiring  nothing 
better  than  that  her  hemisphere  should  remain 
hermetical  in  the  name  of  Mr.  Monroe.  To 
her  enemies  she  seemed  a  comedy,  but  to  her 
friends  it  was  always  America's  tragedy  that 
she  had  no  tragedy. 

But  the  Americanism  which  so  passionately 
demanded  that  America  should  be  passive, 
neutral,  and  static  was  not  the  Americanism  of 
the  people  who  in  a  century  had  decupled  their 
original  acres,  who  drove  the  aborigines  before 

121 


122  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

them,  penetrated  the  country  of  others  with 
armies,  and  even  gave  a  semblance  of  imperial- 
ism to  the  American  eagle.  The  same  ''mani- 
fest destiny"  of  the  United  States  led  her  to 
subjugate  the  northern  and  to  protect  the 
southern  continent  and,  in  spite,  of  a  cherished 
tradition  of  isolation,  to  dominate  the  Pacific 
and  gradually  become  a  world  power. 

No  sooner  had  the  revolting  colonies  set 
adrift  than  they  commenced  to  grow.  Ripe 
fruit  from  the  rotting  trunk  of  Spain  fell  to 
them  for  the  plucking.  Until  the  Civil  War 
America  was  a  great  imperial  and  conquering 
country.  Pioneers  and  prophets  did  the  work 
which  traders  and  missionaries  accomplished 
for  European  Powers  desirous  of  expansion. 
Republics  broke  out  in  her  path  before  they 
merged  in  her  federal  system.  For  a  while 
there  was  a  Texan  republic  and  California  was 
preceded  by  the  Bear  Flag  republic.  The  pos- 
sibility of  a  Mormon  republic  effervesced  into 
the  Great  Salt  Lake.  All  the  while  the  Ameri- 
can was  advancing  and  driving  remorselessly 
the  Indian  and  the  bison,  the  Spaniard  and  the 
elk  before  him.  He  pulled  down  equally  the 
Spanish  and  British  flags.  Jackson  hung  Brit- 
ish subjects  in  Florida,  Pike  of  Pike's  Peak  fell 
trying  to  snatch  Toronto  from  Canada.     Mex- 


WINNING  THE  UNITED  STATES     US 

ico  was  pierced  to  the  gates  of  her  capital  and 
the  Pacific  slope  wrested  from  her  control. 
The  great  annexations  were  made  in  obedience 
to  the  law  that  the  United  States  could  not  be 
hemmed  in  from  their  natural  outlets.  The 
States  are  organic  and  not  static.  The  Civil 
War  came  as  a  great  setback  during  which  the 
red  man  gathered  his  breath  and  the  French 
were  able  to  enter  Mexico. 

While  enjoying  expansion  on  her  own  lines, 
America  remained,  thanks  to  the  Monroe  Doc- 
trine, immune  from  the  expansion  of  others. 
On  the  one  hand,  she  was  determined  that  no 
European  foothold  should  be  allowed  in  the 
new  hemisphere,  and  on  the  other  hand  she 
had  isolated  herself  from  all  such  far-off  un- 
happy things  as  European  wars.  Yet  in  the 
fulness  of  time  it  was  the  former  doctrine  that 
brought  her  intervention  in  the  latter.  Politi- 
cal withdrawal  from  the  planet  proved  impossi- 
ble, owing  to  the  Monroe  Doctrine  itself,  which 
implied  not  only  rights  in  one  hemisphere  but 
responsibilities  towards  another. 

The  Monroe  Doctrine  was  not  merely  an 
anti-British  or  anti-Spanish  policy,  blocking 
their  ways  in  the  New  World.  It  made  Amer- 
ica responsible  for  the  freedom  of  Cuba  and  for 
meeting  any  European  menace  to  the  American 


1^4  THE   IRISH  ISSUE 

hemisphere  in  advance.  It  was  from  a  devel- 
opment of  the  same  doctrine  that  America  left 
her  moorings  at  one  time  to  wage  war  with 
Spain,  and  on  another  to  become  an  ally  of 
England  against  Germany.  Monroe  had  fore- 
seen the  time  when  England  would  have  to  take 
her  place  with  the  monarchs  of  Europe  or  with 
the  American  republic,  with  despotism  or  with 
liberty.  By  a  fortuitous  inspiration  England 
had  approved  the  birth  of  the  Monroe  Doc- 
trine. Though  German  aggression  was  un- 
dreamt of  at  the  time,  Monroe  had  started  the 
train  of  events  which  was  one  day  to  confront 
America,  also,  with  the  choice  of  siding  with 
despotism  or  liberty.  During  the  Great  War 
the  United  Kingdoms  and  the  United  States 
became  alhes.  During  the  century  of  peace 
between  the  Treaty  of  Ghent  and  the  out- 
break of  war  in  1914  they  had  never  been 
united.  Whether  the  military  co-operation 
brought  about  by  the  high-handed  conduct  of 
Germany  will  form  the  basis  of  a  permanent 
entente,  one  in  many  ways  vital  to  the  world 
of  democracy,  remains  to  be  seen.  For  the 
present  the  Anglo-Saxon  schism  is  healed  and 
it  is  interesting  to  recall  the  historical  trend 
by  which  with  many  deviations  the  two  com- 
munities, whom  Mr.  Wilson  has  now  joined 


WINNING  THE  UNITED  STATES     125 

together,  have  been  so  long  making  their 
way. 

In  British  eyes  the  United  States  represent 
the  lost  tribes,  the  political  irredenti  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon,  but  which,  like  the  territory  lost 
to  the  French  and  Spanish  in  the  New  World, 
eschewed  the  idea  of  any  union  with  the  mother 
country.  England  has  several  times  in  hei' 
history  had  to  relinquish  conquered  country, 
but  only  once  her  own  colonised  offspring, 
earth  of  her  earth,  blood  of  her  blood,  in  the 
New  England  colonies.  She  lost  them  because 
her  bonds  were  selfish  and  commercial  instead 
of  being  sentimental  and  maternal.  Only  the 
most  colossal  ideal  could  ever  rebridge  the 
chasm.  Only  an  England  equally  remote  from 
Georgian  imperialism  and  greed  and  contemp- 
tuous of  Victorian  commercialism  could  ap- 
proach the  great  statue  of  liberty  at  the  gates 
of  America  in  the  proper  spirit  of  reconciliation, 
for  the  statue  is  as  much  a  symbol  of  the  na- 
tional religion  as  one  of  the  deified  abstractions 
of  the  Roman  world.  Great  is  Liberty  of  the 
Americans ! 

The  American  Revolution  taught  England 
to  study  the  rights  of  her  own  settlements,  but 
the  lesson  was  only  learnt  at  a  price,  for  the 
unity  of  the  English-speaking  world  had  passed 


126  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

away.  In  vain  the  growing  empire  proceeded 
to  gather  the  ends  of  the  world  into  its  lap  and 
to  add  the  tropics  to  the  arctics.  In  vain 
seemingly  were  great  imperial  growths  and 
federations  forced  or  fostered  in  India,  Aus- 
tralia, and  South  Africa.  The  American  col- 
onies into  which  the  adventurous  heart-blood 
of  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland  had  been  at 
different  times  poured  remained  aloof,  es- 
tranged from  what  they  denied  had  been  a 
mother  country  and  to  which  they  became  sar- 
castic, contemptuous,  and  bitterly  hostile.  In 
his  gigantic  stride  to  possess  himself  of  the 
earth  the  Anglo-Saxon  had  fallen  asunder. 
Ambitions  good  or  evil  are  liable  to  overreach 
themselves,  and  in  taking  Canada  from  France 
England  laid  the  train  which  was  to  lose 
her  the  New  England  colonies,  whose  loyalty 
would  otherwise  have  been  strengthened  by 
a  jealous  French  neighbour,  just  as  Asiatic 
pressure  strengthens  that  of  New  South  Wales. 
But  when  Canada  was  conquered  the  necessity 
of  defence  in  New  England  was  replaced  by  a 
possibility  of  defiance.  The  Revolution  came, 
but  after  the  Anglo-Saxon  rather  than  French 
pattern.  It  was  not  intellectual  or  doctrinaire, 
but  practical,  with  a  sober  religious  motive 
thrown  in.     The  Quebec  Act  practically  estab- 


WINNING  THE  UNITED   STATES     127 

lishing  Catholicism  in  Canada,  filled  the  Puri- 
tan colonies  with  fear  lest  Catholic  or  Anglican 
prelates  might  be  set  over  them.  In  revolu- 
tionary New  England  the  anti-British  and  anti- 
Catholic  sentiment  coalesced.  A  century  later, 
owing  to  the  Irish  immigration,  the  anti-British 
feeling  was  largely  Catholic.  The  colonial  dis- 
like of  Catholicism  was  neutralised  by  a  rebel 
contingent  from  Canada  and  by  the  coming  of 
the  French.  But  the  French  Revolution  was 
more  appreciated  by  American  Ulstermen  than 
by  French-Canadians.  The  Fathers  of  Amer- 
ica made  practical  liberty  rather  than  theoreti- 
cal reason  their  goddess.  The  French  Revolu- 
tion bred  an  empire  which  perished  by  snow 
and  fire  in  Muscovy.  The  American  counter- 
part created  a  republic  which  came  to  stretch 
from  the  fiery  plains  of  Texas  to  the  snows  of 
Alaska,  and  to  prove  one  of  the  few  enduring 
institutions  upon  this  earth. 

The  United  States  immediately  began  to 
breed  the  transatlantic  type  of  the  white  race, 
so  continually  misunderstood  and  unappreci- 
ated by  Englishmen.  The  new  American,  po- 
litically republican  and  racially  aristocratic, 
was  the  most  promising  type  on  earth.  The 
awe  and  reverence  of  the  Puritan  refugee,  com- 
bined  with   the   audacity   and   daring   of  the 


ns  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

younger  son  in  his  blood,  and  both  the  traits 
may  be  traced  in  American  psychology  to-day. 
Some  kind  of  a  super-Anglo-Saxon  seemed  to 
loom  on  the  horizon  of  the  virgin  continent. 
But  this  dream  of  the  ethnologist  was  cut  short 
by  the  Civil  War  between  North  and  South 
and  by  the  unrestricted  arrival  of  other  types 
of  emigrant.  It  was  a  dream  which  is  reflected 
in  the  kinder  caricatures  of  **  Uncle  Sam."  The 
wiry-limbed  awkward  giant,  with  blue  eyes  and 
a  light  goatee,  for  whom  bewildered  visitors 
vainly  search  the  New  York  streets,  was  once 
a  predominant  type.  Hardy  and  magnificently 
uncultured,  it  was  he  who  tore  up  colonial 
tyranny,  broke  the  Hessian  hirelings,  won  the 
naval  war  of  1812  on  points  and  largely  suc- 
cumbed during  the  ghastly  epic  of  the  Civil 
War. 

Cobbett,  on  his  ridiculous  mission  to  fetch 
Tom  Paine's  bones  from  America,  remarked: 
"This  country  of  the  best  and  boldest  of  sea- 
men and  of  the  most  moral  and  happy  people 
in  the  world,  is  also  the  home  of  the  tallest  and 
ablest-bodied  men  in  the  world."  And  during 
the  Civil  War  Meredith  was  alert  enough  to 
comment  on  the  Yankee  generals:  "They  are 
of  a  peculiarly  fine  cast  and  show  the  qualities 
of  energy  and  skill  and  also  race.     They  are 


WINNING  THE   UNITED   STATES     1^29 

by  no  means  vulgar.  Place  our  best  men, 
headed  by  the  (German)  Duke  of  Cambridge 
alongside  them  and  start." 

Though  his  stock  in  trade  was  a  continent, 
Uncle  Sam  had  to  make  his  way  in  the  world, 
for  he  was  without  friends.  His  assets  were 
a  republican  idealism  taken  from  France,  a 
knowledge  of  seamanship  and  an  aptitude  for 
exploration  inherited  from  England,  and  a 
visionary  connection  with  Ireland,  which  made 
that  admiring  island  an  early  and  spontaneous 
contributor  to  filling  his  waste  places.  The 
American  took  to  hard  work  and  scant  liveli- 
hood, and  nevertheless  worked  out  a  culture 
of  his  own.  In  certain  stages  the  straight 
American  seems  to  have  been  pretty  aggravat- 
ing to  the  European,  but  at  his  best  he  produced 
the  type  which  merited  the  celebrated  descrip- 
tion as  one  that  "could  calculate  an  eclipse, 
survey  an  estate,  tie  an  artery,  plan  an  edifice, 
try  a  cause,  break  a  horse,  dance  a  minuet, 
and  play  the  violin." 

Though  the  United  States  started  with  a 
bitter  family  grudge  against  England,  the  forms 
of  law,  religion,  and  politics  remained  Anglo- 
Saxon  under  their  republican  husk.  Talley- 
rand used  to  say  that,  notwithstanding  the  aid 
of   France,  England  was  the  natural  ally  of 


130  THE   IRISH  ISSUE 

the  United  States.  Distance  and  occupation 
for  some  time  kept  any  antagonism  apart. 
Each  was  deeply  engaged,  the  English  in  a 
struggle  with  Napoleon,  the  Americans  in  a 
tussle  with  nature.  In  the  end  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  prevailed  against  both. 

But  in  1812  a  clash  occurred.  England 
found  herself  at  death-grips  with  the  French 
and  needed  sailors  of  the  old  stock.  Necessity 
had  made  the  English  adopt  the  closed  sea  of 
Selden,  while  the  Americans  upheld  the  free- 
dom of  the  seas  of  Grotius.  England  claimed 
the  right  of  search  and  impressed  some  two 
thousand  American  seamen,  some  out  of  the 
best  families,  into  her  ships.  It  was  true  that 
deserters  often  concealed  themselves  under 
false  papers,  but  more  often  real  Americans 
were  flagrantly  kidnapped  under  false  pre- 
tences. The  Americans  were  without  redress 
until  they  fitted  out  frigates  capable  of  winning 
some  of  the  most  famous  duels  in  naval  history. 
The  English  Orders  in  Council  were  revoked, 
but  not  in  time  to  avert  war.  It  is  a  curious 
fact  that  had  the  electric  cable  been  in  existence 
it  would  have  prevented  war  in  1812,  as  surely 
as  it  would  have  precipitated  it  between  Eng- 
land and  America  in  1862. 

As  to  the  war,  every  American  schoolboy 


WINNING  THE  UNITED  STATES    131 

knows  how  Decatur  riddled  the  Macedonian, 
and  how  the  Constitution  sank  the  Guerriere, 
Enghsh  schoolboys  only  remember  the  exploit 
by  which  Captain  Broke  of  the  Shannon  de- 
stroyed the  Chesapeake  off  Boston,  although 

"The  people  of  the  port 
Came  out  to  see  the  sport 
With  the  music  playing  Yankee-doodle-dandy-oh ! " 

w^hich  most  Britishers  still  believe  to  be  the 
American  national  anthem.  The  American 
frigates,  like  the  yachts  of  later  day,  challenged 
the  mother  country  and  more  than  carried  off 
the  naval  honours.  The  Anglo-Saxon,  after 
littering  the  sea  with  Spanish,  Dutch,  and 
French  wreckage,  was  hoist  by  his  own  petard, 
whipped  at  sea  by  his  own  whelps.  If  many 
American  citizens  were  serving  impressed  on 
English  ships,  Decatur  had  old  tars  of  Nelson 
on  his.  The  last  English  survivor  of  these  sea 
duels  died  so  lately  as  in  1892.  One  of  the 
most  successful  of  the  American  commanders 
was  Commodore  Stewart,  the  grandfather  of 
Parnell.  If  the  vrar  did  not  quench  bitterness, 
it  evoked  a  mutual  respect.  Henceforth  Eng- 
lish sea=captains  had  to  admit  an  equality  of 
quality.  On  land  the  English  were  successful 
in  taking  the  capital,  and  an  Irish  family  added 


13^  THE   IRISH   ISSUE 

the  Bladensburg  victory  to  their  name;  but  at 
New  Orleans  the  victory  went  to  the  Americans 
also  under  Scotch-Irish  leadership.  The  Treaty 
of  Ghent  initiated  the  peace  between  the  two 
countries.  It  was  interesting  that  an  Adams 
sat  on  each  side  of  the  table.  English  states- 
men were  to  learn  respect  for  that  shrewd  but 
courteous  family,  old-fashioned  heralds  of  the 
future,  who  faced  them  in  each  Anglo-American 
crisis.  England,  with  Waterloo  on  the  horizon, 
soon  forgot  the  war;  but  for  two  generations 
the  ogre  of  American  nurseries  remained  the 
hated  "Britisher."  American  nationalism  de- 
veloped a  violent  hue  against  the  background 
of  British  rivalry.  Madison  was  the  last  Presi- 
dent to  be  actually  at  war  with  England. 
Monroe,  his  successor,  devised  a  far  subtler 
w^eapon  against  European  interference,  the 
Monroe  Doctrine.  Originally  shafted  at  a 
hint  from  Canning  against  Spain,  it  was  in 
coming  time  to  check  England  herself — an 
arrow  tipped  with  her  own  feathers.  Though 
English  statesmen  would  only  consider  it  ''the 
dictum  of  its  distinguished  author,"  and  Lord 
Salisbury  was  to  deny  its  international  legality, 
the  doctrine  has  proved  stronger  than  the 
sword.  At  the  time  Brougham  declared  that 
"No  event  has  dispersed  greater  joy,  exulta- 


WINNING  THE  UNITED   STATES     133 

tion  and  gratitude  over  all  the  freemen  of 
Europe."  It  saved  South  America  from  the 
"holy  alliance"  of  Romanoff,  Hapsburg,  and 
HohenzoUern. 

Henceforth  there  were  to  be  bitternesses 
enough,  disputes  many,  threatenings  some;  but 
bloodshed  never  again.  The  Monroe  Doctrine 
was  the  pledge.  However  popular  and  politi- 
cal it  was  to  ''twist  the  lion's  tail,"  there  re- 
mained a  subconscious  reservation  against  war. 
Mill  gave  it  expression,  ''A  war  between  Great 
Britain  and  the  United  States  would  give  a 
new  lease  to  tyranny  and  bigotry  wherever 
they  exist  and  would  throw  back  the  progress 
of  mankind  for  generations" — a  corollary  to 
the  dictum  of  Monroe !  If  a  common  tongue 
was  a  constant  adjuration  against  war,  it  was 
not  the  less  provocative  of  quarrels.  And  quar- 
rels there  arose  in  plenty  about  boundaries  and 
ships,  about  seals  in  the  Behring  Sea,  about 
Fenians  in  prison,  about  Oregon  and  Alaska — 
and  even  about  yacht  races.  Every  now  and 
again  a  treaty  cleared  off  outstanding  difficul- 
ties. The  Maine  boundary  was  settled  by 
treaty  between  Daniel  Webster  and  Lord  Ash- 
burton,  but  the  joint  occupation  of  Oregon 
raised  a  party  cry  of  ''Fifty-four-forty  (lati- 
tude) or  fight."     Pakenham  foolishly  refused 


134  THE   IRISH   ISSUE 

President  Polk's  offer  of  the  forty-ninth  lati- 
tude. Secretary  Buchanan  entertained  the 
original  idea  of  making  the  Pope  arbitrator  as 
between  two  heretical  governments.  In  the 
end  Aberdeen  compromised  on  the  forty -ninth 
latitude,  which  gave  Vancouver  to  England. 
Buchanan  became  a  successful  and  the  first 
popular  minister  at  St.  James's,  though  Palm- 
erston,  the  jealous  foe  of  America,  at  one  time 
threatened  his  dismissal.  It  was  Crampton, 
however,  the  minister  in  Washington,  who  was 
dismissed  for  recruiting  during  the  Crimean 
War — ''offered  as  a  sacrifice  to  the  Irish  vote," 
says  Lord  Newton  in  his  able  Life  of  Lyons, 
Though  he  had  become  a  personal  friend  of 
Victoria,  Buchanan  returned  to  become  Presi- 
dent. He  invited  the  Prince  of  Wales  to  visit 
the  land  of  his  ancestors,  so  to  speak.  By 
planting  a  tree  at  Washington's  grave  the 
prince  was  believed  to  have  buried  "the  last 
faint  trace  of  discord"  between  the  two  coun- 
tries. But  the  Civil  War,  to  which  Buchanan's 
feeble  policy  to  the  South  largely  led,  destroyed 
the  good  feeling  at  its  best  and  left  behind  the 
resentment  of  a  generation. 

America  originally  quarrelled  with  King  and 
Tory,  not  with  Radical  and  people.  Liberalism 
always  remained  a  tie  between  the  countries. 


WINNING  THE  UNITED  STATES     135 

Catholic  emancipation  and  Chartism  were  re- 
garded as  complementary  to  Americanism. 
This  accounts  for  the  division  of  English  opinion 
during  the  war,  though  the  perplexed  republic 
believed  Christian  civilisation  was  involved  in 
its  cause.  England  would  not  realise  slavery 
was  at  the  bottom  of  the  war.  The  irony  was 
that  England  by  one  of  the  few  disinterested 
acts  in  history  had  already  freed  her  own  slaves. 
Slavery  had  been  previously  forced  on  the  col- 
onies by  the  mother  country,  but  slavery 
exacted  its  final  retribution  of  blood  from 
America  alone.  Yet  Bristol  had  deserved  the 
fate  of  Richmond.  The  North  believed  that 
her  cause  was  divine,  and  that  her  legions  were 
treading  the  wine-press  of  the  Lord.  Yet  she 
met  with  less  than  sympathy  from  the  land 
whose  flag  was  pledged  to  the  ethics  of  her 
cause.  The  issue  was  as  Rhodes,  the  American 
historian,  puts  it.  The  South  was  ''the  only 
community  of  the  Teutonic  race  which  did  not 
deem  human  slavery  wrong."  However,  Eng- 
land practically  recognised  the  South  as  a  bel- 
ligerent, rather  than  as  a  rebel  against  a  friendly 
Power,  and  showed  a  hostility  to  the  North 
that  even  Lincoln's  emancipation  of  the  negro 
did  not  wholly  remove.  It  was  true,  Lincoln 
did  not  interfere  with  slavery  at  the  outset. 


136  THE   IRISH   ISSUE 

and  it  remained  indefinitely  guaranteed  by 
Congress;  but  it  was  for  those  with  eyes  to 
see  to  be  sure  that  slavery  and  the  Confederacy 
must  perish  together.  Unfortunately,  Russell 
preferred  to  think  the  North  was  fighting  for 
empire,  and  the  South  for  independence;  and 
Gladstone  by  a  serious  mistake  declared  Jeff 
Davis  had  created  a  nation.  The  result  was 
that  the  friendly  North  became  hostile,  and  the 
South,  which  had  disliked  England  as  presum- 
ably Abolitionist,  reversed  her  feelings. 

The  English  aristocracies  of  blood  and  letters 
followed  the  politicians.  Freeman  began  the 
History  of  Federalism  until  the  "disruption  of 
the  United  States."  Carlyle  thought  the  war 
of  liberation  *'a  smoky  chimney  which  had 
taken  fire."  The  surrender  of  Lee  was  felt  as 
a  tragic  sorrow  by  Lord  Acton.  Nevertheless, 
the  North  had  friends  strong,  stern,  and  stanch 
in  England — Argyll,  Whewell,  Leslie  Stephen, 
Milner  Gibson,  and  chiefly  John  Bright,  who 
smote  ''the  devilish  delusion  that  slavery  was 
a  divine  institution."  Lincoln  pardoned  a 
British  privateer  "as  a  mark  of  the  esteem 
held  by  the  United  States  for  the  high  charac- 
ter and  steady  friendship  of  John  Bright." 
It  was  a  pity  that  Bright  could  not  afterwards 
have  visited  America  as  envoy,  where  he  was 


WINNING  THE  UNITED   STATES     137 

promised  ''flowers  from  Chicago  to  the  sea." 
His  is  the  only  British  bust  to  be  placed  in  the 
White  House.  The  religious  democrat  is  the 
type  of  Englishman  who  has  always  appealed 
most  deeply  to  the  real  American  people — 
Bright,  Shaftesbury,  Gordon,  or  Havelock,  at 
whose  death  in  India  the  flags  in  New  York 
harbour  were  lowered.  Bright' s  name  still  does 
service  in  xlmerica.  The  corresponding  heroes 
of  the  North  made  no  appeal  to  Englishmen 
until  after  their  death.  John  Brown,  whose 
soul  the  Northern  armies  invoked  on  the 
march,  seemed  a  mixture  of  Pilgrim  Father  and 
mad  dog,  for  whose  ecstasy  the  noose  made 
the  best  muzzle.  General  Grant  was  far  from 
seeming  the  ideal  of  the  Horse  Guards.  By 
descent  "a  hard  Scotch  pebble,"  with  a  Kelly 
grandmother,  he  was  inexorable  without  bra- 
vado, and  patient  without  complacency;  but 
he  looked  seedy  and  scrubby  beside  the  cavalier 
Lee.  Lincoln  was  only  seen  in  a  haze  of  cari- 
cature. He  came  to  the  White  House  "a 
backwoods  Jupiter,"  and  his  own  knew  him 
not.  The  genius  it  took  America  four  years, 
England  may  be  pardoned  for  taking  forty  to 
realise.  She  saw  him  only  in  W.  H.  Russell's 
descriptions,  the  ''tall,  lean,  lank  man,"  with 
"pendulous  arms"  and  the  "strange  quaint 


138  THE   IRISH  ISSUE 

face  and  head  covered  with  its  thatch  of  wild 
repubhcan  hair."  Punch  caricatured  him  as 
Brutus,  as  a  bilHard  sharp,  as  a  card  gambler, 
as  a  coon  in  the  trees,  as  a  Phoenix  rising  out 
of  war's  horrid  flames.  Uncouth  and  unedu- 
cated and  unbred,  Abraham  Lincoln  became 
the  truest  and  the  greatest  of  Americans. 
Walt  Whitman  observed  that  whereas  "Wash- 
ington was  modelled  on  the  best  Saxon  and 
Franklin  was  essentially  a  noble  Englishman, 
Lincoln  was  far  less  European."  Europe  in- 
deed underestimated  him,  while  America  has 
been  trying  to  live  up  to  him  ever  since. 

During  his  administration  Lincoln  learnt 
with  lonely  pain  the  arts  of  war  and  letters. 
The  burden  of  the  state  rested  on  those  shoul- 
ders knotted  by  rail-splitting.  The  resources 
of  that  mind  untilled  by  pedantry,  unfettered 
by  precedent,  served  equally  his  people  and 
his  generals.  His  daily  anguish  he  concealed 
under  a  mask.  The  quaint  stories  he  told  to 
hide  his  heart  might  be  likened  to  the  grotesques 
with  which  the  medisevals  relieved  their  cathe- 
drals dedicated  to  divine  tragedy.  When  hu- 
mour failed  him,  Lincoln  fell  back  upon  mys- 
ticism. Under  his  tortured  strength  of  purpose 
grew  that  "charity  towards  all  with  malice  to 
none,"    from    which    the    American    soul    still 


WINNING  THE  UNITED   STATES     139 

draws  in  its  great  moments.  It  was  truly  from 
Lincoln's  chair,  and  spiritually  in  Lincoln's 
blood  that  Woodrow  Wilson  wrote  the  words 
of  his  address  to  Congress,  bringing  America 
into  war.  Far  removed  from  the  jangling  bit- 
terness and  overweening  hatred  of  the  present, 
seemed  to  speak  the  dead  Lincoln,  sacrificing 
all  save  honour,  forgiving  all  save  the  unpar- 
donable, unswerving  because  deliberate,  and 
remorseless  because  just. 

The  common  language  has  long  made  jour- 
nalism the  dangerous  and  very  undiplomatic 
diplomacy  between  the  United  Kingdoms  and 
the  United  States.  During  the  Civil  War  the 
London  Times  and  the  New  York  Herald  laid 
up  a  harvest  of  hate  between  two  peoples  who 
had  every  intention  to  respect  and  love  each 
other.  Even  Lincoln's  Proclamation  of  Free- 
dom seemed  to  The  Times  only  "a  very  sad 
document,"  to  be  answered  with  ''a  hiss  of 
scorn."  The  English  people  believed  the  Proc- 
lamation justified  the  war,  but  there  was  no 
popular  press  to  say  so.  Under  the  influence 
of  press  and  prejudice,  unthinking  Englishmen 
preferred  to  champion  the  astute  and  aristo- 
cratic president  of  fortune,  Jeff  Davis,  the 
slave-owning  Anglican  bishop  and  general, 
Leonidas  Polk,  and  the  peerless  Lee,  with  Marl- 


140  THE   IRISH   ISSUE 

borouglij  the  greatest  strategist  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  race  has  produced.  To  such  men  the 
FeudaKsts  looked  to  prick  the  great  bubble  of 
democracy  with  their  swords.  But  the  English 
working  men  realised  that  the  failure  of  the 
North  would  postpone  their  own  franchise,  and 
they  believed  in  Lincoln.  Idealists  in  Liver- 
pool and  Manchester  preferred  to  starve  for 
lack  of  cotton  than  allow  the  Northern  cause 
to  be  imperilled.  x\ristocrats  all  over  the 
world  favoured  the  South,  Liberals  the  North. 
Material  reasons,  even  cotton,  ''the  Dagon  of 
Dixie,"  and  Davis's  strongest  plenipotentiary, 
did  not  play  so  great  a  part  as  class  idealism. 
Lincoln  sent  flour  up  the  Mersey  to  relieve 
distress,  but  his  real  gift  to  the  English  came 
after  his  death.  His  victory  in  1865  made  a 
reform  bill  practicable  and  even  imperative 
two  years  later.  The  Civil  War  drew  out  its 
piteous  length.  The  Southern  chivalry  and 
the  Northern  crusade  agonised  on  battle-fields 
that  few  Englishmen  have  known  well  enough 
to  name  with  pride  or  grief.  At  Gettysburg 
and  Chickamauga,  at  Vicksburg  and  in  the 
Wilderness,  the  North  carved  out  the  future  of 
democracy.  Had  they  not  been  fought  and 
won  America  would  not  have  been  united  to 
enter  the  war  to-day.     But  what  has  Freder- 


WINNING  THE  UNITED   STATES     141 

icksburg  or  Shiloh  meant  to  Englishmen? 
What  happened  at  Appomattox — ask?  Too 
late  was  Grant  saluted  as  conqueror.  During 
his  struggle  to  conquer  he  had  no  sympathy 
from  Palmerston's  England  or  Napoleon  the 
Third's  France.  But  he  had  Sherman,  who 
said  ''War  is  hell,"  and  he  had  Sheridan,  who 
was  Charles  O'Malley  risen  glorified.  Too  late 
was  Lincoln  recognised  by  England.  ''Is  it 
nothing  to  you  ?  "  he  might  have  asked  visitors 
who  came  and  saw  and  idly  passed  by.  In 
spite  of  his  guest's  expressed  Southern  sympa- 
thies, he  received  Lord  Hartington  at  the  \Miite 
House,  but  with  some  humour  insisted  on  ad- 
dressing him  as  "Mr.  Partington,"  serene  in 
the  rising  tide  of  a  democracy  that  no  mop 
could  push  back. 

English  and  American  spitfires  threatened 
each  other;  but  real  trouble  was  not  slow  in 
coming  at  sea.  The  terror  of  the  North  and 
the  hope  of  the  South  lay  in  intervention  from 
Europe.  The  Confederacy  sent  envoys.  To 
the  delirious  enthusiasm  of  America  they  were 
taken  off  the  British  Trent  by  a  Yankee  cap- 
tain, after  a  preliminary  shot  across  the  bows. 
Oddly  enough  he  was  claiming  the  right  of 
search  against  which  his  country  had  fought 
so   passionately   in    1812.     Fortunately    there 


142  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

were  no  Atlantic  cables  to  precipitate  an  in- 
stant explosion.  But  England,  no  less  moved, 
gave  seven  days  for  the  return  of  the  envoys; 
and  the  Guards  were  sent  to  add  a  Canadian 
winter  to  their  Crimean  experiences.  Delane 
of  The  Times  wrote:  "The  whole  army,  navy, 
and  volunteers  are  mad  for  service  in  America." 
Mad  indeed !  In  the  American  Senate  prayer 
was  made,  mentioning  "foreign  arrogance"  to 
the  Republican  Jehovah.  But  behind  the  men 
of  patriotic  impulse  wrought  the  men  of  inter- 
national character.  The  prince  consort  sof- 
tened down  the  draft  of  the  English  ministers, 
of  Russell,  "the  great  little  man,"  and  of 
Palmerston,  "the  little  great  man."  Adams 
moved  fearlessly  and  lonely  in  London.  The 
pink  of  democratic  diplomacy,  he  never  gave 
what  would  have  been  an  aristocratic  war  a 
chance.  Bright  wrote,  bidding  Lincoln  "put 
all  the  fire-eaters  in  the  wrong."  Secretary 
Seward  had  the  cunning,  or  the  Christianity, 
to  turn  the  official  cheek  by  offering  an  Ameri- 
can port  for  "landing  and  transporting  to 
Canada  troops,  stores,  and  munitions  of  war 
of  every  kind  without  exception  or  reserva- 
tion." "There  will  be  no  war  unless  England 
is  bent  on  having  one,"  said  Lincoln.  Brag- 
gartry  at  home  or  abroad  Lincoln  never  an- 


WINNING  THE  UNITED  STATES     143 

swered.  He  was  too  high  and  remote  not  to 
include  a  wish  for  what  was  best  for  both  Con- 
federate and  Britisher  in  his  service  to  his  own 
people.  At  heart  he  loved  the  South,  and  he 
desired  no  less  that  England  should  love  him. 
He  could  no  more  hate  than  Washington  could 
lie.  He  used  other  weapons.  With  a  wintry 
smile  he  let  the  envoys,  or  "white  elephants," 
as  he  called  them,  proceed  to  Europe,  where 
they  continued  to  damage  their  own  cause 
until  further  notice. 

In  spite  of  Seward's  accompanying  rhetoric, 
the  surrender  pacified  England.  But  the  psy- 
chological mischief  stayed.  As  Lowell  wrote 
afterwards:  ''It  is  not  the  Alabama  that  is  at 
the  bottom  of  our  grudge.  It  is  the  Trent  that 
we  quarrel  about,  like  Percy  and  Glendower. 
That  was  like  an  east  wind  to  our  old  wound." 
The  Alabanih,  though  fitted  out  in  England, 
was  at  least  an  American  enterprise,  of  which 
Americans  could  feel  proud.  But  the  Laird 
Rams  brewed  war.  One  was  launched  at  Liv- 
erpool the  same  day  that  the  North  drove  back 
Lee  at  Gettysburg.  Leslie  Stephen  wrote 
wisely:  ''If  Laird  could  be  hanged  for  getting 
two  great  nations  into  a  quarrel  to  sell  his 
ships,  I  should  be  heartily  glad."  The  Rams 
meant  breaking  the  blockade  of  the  South,  but 


144  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

the  English  people  were  innocent,  unaware 
even  of  the  fell  work  of  individuals.  The  Ala- 
bama had  slipped  to  sea,  while  the  Queen's 
advocate  was  enjoying  a  fortuitous  nervous 
breakdown.  The  Laird  Rams  would  have  fol- 
lowed, had  not  Adams  mentioned  with  old- 
fashioned  correctness  to  Palmerston:  ''It  would 
be^superfluous  in  me  to  point  out  to  your  Lord- 
ship that  this  means  war."  The  Rams  were 
quietly  passed  into  the  British  navy.  Mr. 
Adams  had  given  another  right  turn  to  the 
world's  helm.  The  peril  had  passed,  and  an 
Anglo-American  tragedy  had  been  averted. 
But  the  scars  remained;  and  Lyons  reported 
the  next  year  from  Washington:  "Three-quar- 
ters of  the  American  people  are  eagerly  longing 
for  a  safe  opportunity  of  making  war  with 
England."  But  a  safe  opportunity,  at  least 
safe  for  the  democratic  future  of  the  world, 
never  came.  After  the  war  the  old  reverence 
for  England  was  replaced  by  suspicion  and  an 
excusable  elation.  The  national  outlines  had 
been  welded.  The  biggest  army  on  earth  had 
taken  the  field.  The  ironclad  had  been  born. 
Enormous  damages  were  assessed  on  the  Ala- 
bama, whose  ghost  long  flitted  the  seas.  Sum- 
ner, as  a  reprisal,  demanded  "the  withdrawal 
of  the  British  from  this  hemisphere."     There 


WINNING  THE   UNITED   STATES     145 

was  a  popular  cry  of  ''Canada  for  the  Ala- 
bama,'' Lord  Clarendon's  treaty  with  Minis- 
ter Johnson  was  thrown  out  by  the  Senate. 
The  Treaty  of  Washington  brought  apology 
and  arbitration.  The  Alabama  cost  England 
three  million  pounds,  which  was  a  very  cheap 
way  to  discover  that  England  and  America  had 
found,  in  arbitration,  a  permanent  and  better 
way  than  war.  The  new  tendencies,  however, 
involved  in  America  intense  dislike  for  English 
statecraft,  increased  influence  of  the  Irish,  who 
had  paid  their  footing  with  their  blood,  and  a 
movement  towards  domestic  corruption  as  a 
reaction  from  the  moral  uplift  of  the  war. 
The  war  ended  nobly,  so  that  Meredith  said 
later:  "Since  the  benignant  conclusion  of  the 
greatest  of  civil  wars,  I  have  looked  on  the 
American  people  as  leaders  of  our  civilisa- 
tion." 

But  reaction  had  followed.  The  South  was 
not  plundered,  but  the  sense  of  plunder  found 
a  channel  in  pension-fraud,  graft,  and  unscru- 
pulous finance.  The  noblest  had  perished,  and 
the  "carpetbagger"  took  his  place.  Peace  be- 
came no  less  furious  than  war.  Never  again 
could  Thackeray  call  New  York  a  cathedral 
town,  "grave,  decorous,  and  well-read."  Mili- 
tarism was  applied  to  industrialism.     Trade 


146  THE   IRISH  ISSUE 

only  favoured  the  survival  of  the  cheapest. 
Firm  fought  firm,  and  trust  was  reared  upon 
trust  until,  in  our  day,  the  "malefactors  of 
great  wealth"  sat  in  unseen  power.  Episodes 
like  the  impeachment  of  President  Johnson 
and  the  Tweed  Ring  saddened  the  friends 
of  the  republic.  But  the  country  was  far 
too  young  to  become  decadent.  The  national 
life  ran  sweet,  noisy,  and  adventurous  all  the 
while.  A  new  American  sprang  up,  cosmopol- 
itan, childlike,  optimistic,  a  quick  moneymaker 
but  a  cheerful  spender,  devoid  of  all  the  big- 
otries, tolerant  of  the  past,  greedy  of  the  pres- 
ent, sure  of  the  future.  It  was  the  type  Eng- 
lishmen inconsistently  term  irreverent,  while 
smiling  at  its  eager  reverences  offered  to  Old 
World  objects — the  type  that  only  a  Haps- 
burg  or  a  Hohenzollern  could  drive  into  war. 
Good  relations  with  such  could  be  maintained 
only  by  treating  Americans  as  Americans,  and 
not  as  ex-Englishmen.  Render  to  the  Yankee 
the  things  that  belong  to  the  Yankee,  and  to 
God  the  things  that  are  God's — would  have 
been  a  wise  social  provision.  The  mistake  of 
insular  Englishmen  has  been  to  conceive  both 
after  his  own  image.  Not  without  reason 
Lowell  protested  against  "a  conviction  that 
whatever  good  there  is  in  us  is  wholly  English, 


WINNING  THE  UNITED   STATES     147 

when  the  truth  is  that  we  are  worth  nothing 
except  so  far  as  we  have  disinfected  ourselves 
of  Anghcism." 

Providence  rather  than  diplomacy  seemed  to 
safeguard  the  relations  of  England  and  Amer- 
ica. A  cousinly  carelessness  and  a  fraternal 
contempt  prevailed.  Three  times  was  a  Brit- 
ish minister  to  be  dismissed  from  Washington 
for  undiplomatic  conduct. 

Anglo-American  diplomacy  has  been  unique 
in  not  needing  a  use  of  foreign  tongues.  Can- 
ning told  Charles  Bagot  that  ''the  hardest  les- 
son a  British  minister  has  to  learn  in  America 
is  not  what  to  do,  but  what  to  bear."  Bagot 
concluded  with  Mr.  Rush  that  agreement  which 
secured  a  century  of  unarmed  peace  between 
Canada  and  the  United  States.  On  the  Great 
Lakes  both  agreed  to  burn  their  boats  of  war 
behind  them.  The  Canadian  frontier  remained 
a  perpetual  plenipotentiary  of  peace.  As  Sir 
Charles  FitzPatrick  recently  reminded  the 
lawyers  of  New  York:  "The  longest  frontier  on 
the  earth's  surface  has  at  the  same  time  been 
the  most  defenceless  and  the  most  safe."  But 
the  early  diplomatists  were  contemptuous. 
Relations  were  odd.  The  British  minister, 
Merry,  complained  officially  that  President 
Jefferson   received  him   ''in  shppers  down   at 


148  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

the  heels,"  and  revenged  himself  by  entertain- 
ing Tom  Moore,  who  wrote  obscene  squibs 
against  Jefferson  from  the  British  embassy ! 
Jackson,  Pakenham,  and  Crampton  were  in- 
sulting at  Washington,  apparently  not  realising 
they  were  in  a  foreign  country.  Jackson 
roundly  accused  the  government  of  lying  and 
was  sent  home.  Bulwer  was  the  first  to  adapt 
himself  to  the  situation,  realising  that  English 
diplomacy  had  been  made  rather  to  win  over 
despots  than  to  conciliate  democracies.  ''Di- 
plomacy here  is  electioneering,"  he  wrote  from 
Washington;  and  he  achieved  the  success  of 
the  Clayton-Bulwer  Treaty.  The  contemptu- 
ous school  was  followed  by  the  pompous.  The 
stately  figures  of  Lyons,  Sackville,  and  Paunce- 
f ote  dazzled  the  official  scene  without  approach- 
ing the  heart  of  the  republic.  Leslie  Stephen 
described  the  embassy  in  the  sixties  of  the  last 
century  as  "a  small  knot  of  British  swells  with 
no  employment  but  that  of  cursing  the  coun- 
try from  morning  to  night."  It  was  obvious 
at  least  that  they  felt  at  home;  but  good  rela- 
tions must  have  languished.  A  period  of  offi- 
cial laudation  and  mutual  admiration  followed, 
variegated  by  tentative  arbitrations,  and  by 
quick  exchanges  on  Irish  points.  The  heyday 
of  reconciliation  was  reached  under  the  demo- 


WINNING  THE   UNITED   STATES     149 

cratic  school  initiated  by  Bryce.  Fifty  years 
before,  Delane  had  wished  a  popular  speech - 
maker  to  be  sent  to  Washington.  Bryce's  lit- 
erary tribute  to  the  American  Constitution 
marked  him  as  more  American  than  most 
Americans.  His  acceptance  of  a  peerage 
caused  a  little  sadness,  as  though  they  had 
lost  one  of  themselves.  America  herself  hon- 
oured St.  James's  with  men  of  letters  like 
Bancroft,  Motley,  and  Lowell.  When  their 
Americanism  was  their  chief  charm,  Anglicisa- 
tion  must  be  regarded  as  a  besetting  sin.  An 
American  minister  is  liable  to  merge  his  na- 
tionality in  a  manner  impossible  to  a  real 
foreigner.  Better,  however,  he  should  remain 
aloof  than  not  keep  a  clear  idea  of  the  Ameri- 
can before  English  eyes. 

If  English  diplomatists  were  crude  and  un- 
conciliatory  toward  Americans,  the  tourists  and 
travellers  were  worse.  Writers  like  the  Trol- 
lopes  and  Dickens  recorded  their  unforgiven 
impressions.  The  mutual  ridicule  which  a 
common  tongue  afforded  reads  as  ridiculously 
as  Matt  Ward's  scoffing  at  English  factory 
chimneys  for  "kissing  the  clouds"  to  a  genera- 
tion which  has  found  America  guilty  of  a  little 
skyscraping  herself.  The  burden  of  British 
abuse  was  that  the  Americans  spat,   and  in 


150  THE   IRISH   ISSUE 

reply  Scripture  was  seriously  adduced  to  show 
that  the  Saviour  had  also  done  so! 

The  history  of  English  visiting  in  America 
does  not  afford  a  lesson  in  perfect  tact  or  de- 
portment. It  is  unjust  to  take  liberties  in  the 
land  of  liberty.  American  manners  are  based 
on  good  nature,  not  on  etiquette.  God's  gen- 
tlemen are  frequent  in  "God's  own  country." 
The  Victorian  frankly  disliked  America,  and 
said  so.  The  lionised  Dickens  offended  her 
mortally.  Thackeray,  also  a  success  as  a  lec- 
turer, wisely  promised  to  write  no  American 
Notes,  reserving  his  satire  for  the  Georges. 
He  reached  the  wise  conclusion  that  "the  great 
point  to  ding  into  the  ears  of  the  great,  stupid, 
virtue-proud  English  public  is  that  there  are 
folks  as  good  as  they  in  America."  As  lec- 
turers Matthew  Arnold  was  inaudible  and  Free- 
man unintelligible.  The  Stanleys,  both  the 
explorer  and  the  dean,  were  a  success.  The 
dean's  eulogium  of  the  Anglican  divine.  Hooker, 
was  taken  as  a  shrewd  compliment  to  "fighting 
Joe  Hooker,"  a  popular  general.  Froude  was 
mischievous  enough  to  attack  the  Irish  in  a 
series  of  lectures,  which  were  no  less  fiercely 
answered  by  Father  Tom  Burke.  Diplomacy 
was  embarrassed  before  he  could  be  induced  to 
drop  his  tour.     One  of  his  taunts  was  never 


WINNING  THE   UNITED   STATES     151 

forgotten:  'Tree  nations  are  not  made  by 
playing  at  insurrection.  If  Ireland  desires  to 
be  a  nation,  she  must  learn  not  merely  to  shout 
for  liberty  but  to  fight  for  it."  Now  this  was 
unfair  in  a  land  where  Irishmen  had  three 
times  taken  up  arms  for  liberty. 

The  Civil  War  was  fought  to  its  bitter  end 
mainly  by  the  three  types,  Anglo-Saxon,  Irish, 
and  German,  whose  survivors  might  have  com- 
bined in  time  to  come  to  produce  an  ideal 
American  blending  of  the  Celtic  and  Teutonic 
elements.  But  the  Civil  War  cut  very  deep 
into  the  original  stock.  The  Anglo-Saxon  gen- 
try of  the  South  perished.  No  modern  pros- 
perity has  made  up  for  the  loss  of  the  old  blood. 
The  German  and  Irish  have  been  reinforced  by 
immigration  in  a  way  lacking  to  the  Anglo- 
Saxon.  He  has  fallen  behind  in  a  country 
which  recognises  numbers,  but  not  caste.  In  a 
book  recently  published  in  America,  The  Pass- 
ing of  the  Great  Race^  Mr.  Madison  Grant  says 
what  is  probably  true  enough:  "If  the  Civil 
War  had  not  occurred  these  same  men,  with 
their  descendants,  would  have  populated  the 
Western  States  instead  of  the  racial  nonde- 
scripts who  are  now  flocking  there."  It  has 
been  those  Western  States  which  at  the  begin- 
ning  decided  American  attitude  towards   the 


152  THE   IRISH   ISSUE 

present  conflict.  A  matter  of  national  honour 
is  not  likely  to  appeal  except  to  the  Celtic  and 
Teutonic  stocks  of  America.  Of  these  the  most 
vivid  of  Celtic  and  Teutonic  strains,  the  Irish 
and  the  German,  outnumber  their  fellow,  the 
Anglo-Saxon.  "Two  great  families  of  men 
are  in  the  American  field,  the  Teutons  and 
the  Celts,"  wrote  D'Arcy  M'Gee  in  1851.  As 
Froude  sorrowfully  recognised,  seven  years 
after  the  Civil  War,  "the  Anglo-Saxon  power 
is  running  to  seed."  The  life  of  equal  oppor- 
tunity, unhampered  by  privilege,  has  shown 
that  there  is  no  race  superiority  between 
Aryan  peoples  in  America.  Influences  and 
riches  go  to  the  numerous  and  industrious. 
While  the  law,  language,  and  legislature  can  be 
called  Anglo-Saxon,  the  Celtic  leaven  and  the 
huge  foreign  communities  have  undermined  the 
Anglophile  instinct,  except  in  social  circles. 
The  Irish  have  become,  at  any  rate,  as  Ameri- 
canised as  the  original  colonists ;  and  in  another 
generation  the  Germans,  who  now  retain  their 
language,  will  follow  suit.  How  far  the  original 
type  is  surviving  is  becoming  doubtful.  Per- 
haps Mr.  Madison  Grant  concludes  his  volume 
a  little  pessimistically:  "If  the  melting-pot  is 
allowed  to  boil  without  control,  the  type  of 
native  American  of  Colonial  descent  will  be- 


WINNING  THE  UNITED   STATES     153 

come  as  extinct  as  the  Athenian  of  the  age  of 
Pericles."  Yet  no  Irish- American  would  wish 
to  see  the  Anglo-Saxon  as  rare  on  the  banks  of 
the  Hudson  as  the  Redskin  on  the  Mississippi. 
The  Celt  and  the  Saxon  in  America  have  rec- 
ognised their  kindred  stock  in  the  Aryan  heri- 
tage. They  have  mixed  in  the  professions  and 
in  every  social  circle,  and  in  blood  when  reli- 
gion would  permit.  It  is  in  Ireland  herself 
that  the  Irish  have  not  received  Aryan  recog- 
nition. 

The  antagonism  of  the  Celt  and  the  Saxon 
passes  beyond  the  dead  hand  of  the  antiquarian, 
and  even  out  of  the  livelier  grasp  of  the  poli- 
tician, when  considered  in  its  results  to  world- 
politics.  The  Irish  driven  out  of  Ireland  have 
become  something  between  a  lever  and  a  leaven 
in  every  single  part  of  the  empire.  Never  in 
the  majority,  they  are  always  the  strongest 
amongst  minorities.  The  casting  vote  and  the 
balance  of  political  power  comes  to  them  by 
chance  or  by  right.  This  is  even  more  so  in 
the  United  States,  where  dwell  a  majority  of 
the  whole  race,  estimated  between  fifteen  and 
twenty  millions.  The  United  States  were  origi- 
nally an  extension  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  world. 
The  English  Colonials  with  strong  Irish  back- 
ing (chiefly  from  Ulster)  laid  down  the  great 


154  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

republic  on  lines  which  have  since  been  strained, 
though  not  sapped,  by  the  incoming  hordes 
from  east  Europe  and  west  Asia.  The  Anglo- 
Saxon,  the  Irish,  and  to  a  lesser  extent  the  Ger- 
man, have  proved  the  most  ready  to  assimilate 
Americanism.  But,  to  the  hordes  of  Slavs, 
Mediterranean  and  Levantine  types,  America 
is  little  less  than  a  golden  caravanserai.  Owing 
to  them,  the  tone  of  national  consciousness  has 
changed  since  the  Civil  War.  The  American 
''melting-pot"  has  not  yet  yielded  a  corporate 
American  nationality. 

The  mistake  of  regarding  the  Irish  as  inferior 
at  home  has  been  extended  into  considering 
them  negligible  when  scattered  abroad.  In 
spite  of  a  generation  of  signs  and  warnings, 
England  has  never  made  any  genuine  political 
move  or  diplomatic  advance  towards  the  Irish- 
Americans.  This  Irish  influence  runs  stiller 
and  deeper  than  any  superficial  examination 
would  show.  Few  governors  of  States,  few 
elected  judges,  or  representatives,  or  senators, 
but  have  to  feel  and  consider  at  some  time  the 
weight  of  the  Irish  vote,  or  at  least  the  latent 
strength  of  Irish  opinion.  If  they  reckon  the 
Irish  press  and  the  professional  Irish  politicians 
as  negligible,  they  know  that  Irish  opinion  is 
not.     It   runs   in   the   marrow  of  the  United 


WINNING  THE   UNITED   STATES     155 

States.  It  is  the  ever=ready  force  that  strength- 
ens her  arm  when  she  wishes  to  oppose  Eng- 
land, and  that  slows  her  hand  whenever  it  is 
proffered  in  friendship.  Washington  has  never 
countenanced  any  direct  Irish  attack  on  Eng- 
land; and  men  like  John  Boyle  O'Reilly  have 
always  been  ready  to  carry  through  a  states- 
manlike bargain  between  Celt  and  Saxon. 
Though  O'Reilly  suffered  penal  servitude,  he 
adopted  a  wise  attitude  in  the  most  brilliant  of 
Irish- American  papers.  In  1885  he  wrote  in 
the  Pilot:  "One  magnanimous  statesman  in 
England,  one  leader  with  the  wisdom  and  cour- 
age of  genius,  would  solidify  the  British  Em- 
pire to-day  with  a  master-stroke  of  politics. 
Such  a  policy  would  silence  the  dynamiters  and 
radicals,  satisfy  and  gratify  the  Irish  people 
throughout  the  world,  strengthen  the  British 
Empire,  and  make  America  thoroughly  sympa- 
thetic." It  is  sad  that  this  is  the  very  cry 
which  lovers  of  Ireland  and  would-be  admirers 
of  England  felt  compelled  to  reiterate  to-day. 
It  has  been  said  that  Irish  nationalism  stands 
between  Ireland  and  the  light  of  the  world.  It 
also  stands  between  England  and  the  love  of 
the  world.  Envoy  after  envoy  has  found  his 
work  at  Washington  checked  and  checkered. 
The  history  of  British  diplomacy  in  the  United 


156  THE   IRISH  ISSUE 

States  has  been  one  long  struggle  against  Irish 
influences  in  the  dark. 

The  important  convention  agreed  upon  by 
Reverdy  Johnson  and  Lord  Clarendon  in  Lon- 
don was  thrown  out  in  the  Senate.  Bancroft 
in  his  Life  of  Seward  clearly  traces  this  to  its 
source.  "The  Fenian  movement  had  increased 
the  strong  public  sentiment  in  favour  of  wait- 
ing for  an  opportunity  to  retaliate.  This  was 
such  an  opportunity."  The  play  and  counter- 
play  of  Irish  sentiment  in  American  politics  be- 
came more  and  more  marked.  Each  President 
had  to  deal  with  it.  President  Johnson  was 
much  at  a  loss  what  to  do  with  Fenian  raiders 
of  Canada.  The  government  could  only  let 
them  down  as  gently  as  possible  without  offend- 
ing England.  President  Grant  was  much  em- 
barrassed by  the  Irish  mission  to  the  American 
centenary  under  Parnell,  who  refused  to  be 
introduced  by  the  British  ambassador.  We 
find  Alexander  Sullivan  interviewing  President 
Arthur  on  Irish  emigration,  and  causing  diplo- 
matic action  thereby  which  Parnell  character- 
ised as  "the  best  slap  England  had  from  Amer- 
ica since  the  War  of  1812." 

Sackville-West,  whose  every  move  was 
watched  and  foiled  by  an  intensely  active 
Fenian  party,  actually  took  refuge,  during  the 


WINNING  THE  UNITED   STATES     157 

time  of  the  Phoenix  Park  executions,  on  the 
presidential  yacht;  and  indirectly  he  owed,  in 
the  end,  his  abrupt  dismissal  to  the  force  of 
Irish  opinion.  An  indiscreet  letter  from  his 
pen  at  election  time  gave  the  Irish  Democrats 
a  distinct  breach  of  etiquette  to  work  upon, 
and  Cleveland  handed  Sackville-West  his  pa- 
pers. It  was  an  act  of  unprecedented  rigour, 
but  the  Irish-Americans  were  strong  enough  to 
insist.  The  Times  laid  it  to  Boyle  O'Reilly's 
credit,  just  as  Mr.  G.  W.  Smalley  gave  Senator 
Patrick  Collins  credit  for  keeping  the  Anglo- 
phile minister  Phelps  from  the  Supreme  bench. 
The  nineties  brought  the  Venezuelan  crisis. 
The  British  boundary  was  based  on  old  Dutch 
rights,  and  the  Venezuelan  on  Spanish.  Eng- 
land refused  to  arbitrate  and  Cleveland  de- 
manded a  commission  as  an  alternative  to  war. 
Bryce  says  his  motives  have  never  been  under- 
stood. The  truth  is,  America  had  come  of 
age,  and  a  reassertion  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine 
was  in  her  mounting  blood.  The  Democrats 
had  returned  to  power  for  the  first  time  since 
the  Civil  War;  and  the  Irish  among  them  w^ere 
nettled  by  the  rejection  of  home  rule  the  pre- 
vious year.  The  Irish  and  Cleveland  found 
their  antagonist  was  the  same.  Salisbury,  the 
postponer  of  Irish  freedom,  was  an  easier  and 


158  THE   IRISH   ISSUE 

welcomer  target  than  Gladstone,  whose  Civil 
War  indiscretions  had  been  forgotten  in  his 
subsequent  liberalism.  Cleveland  spoke  firmly 
in  order  to  avert  the  possible  occasions  of  war. 
He  refused  all  ''supine  submission";  and  the 
boundary  was  adjudicated  without  disturbing 
the  rest  of  Mr.  Monroe  or  the  peace  of  the 
world. 

As  the  Bayard-Chamberlain  Treaty  had  been 
rejected  by  the  Senate  in  1888,  so  the  same 
levers  were  used  by  Michael  Davitt  to  work 
the  defeat  of  the  Anglo-American  Treaty  of 
1897.  A  passage  is  worth  quoting  from  the 
late  Mr.  Sheehy  Skeffington's  Life  of  Davitt, 
not  so  much  as  a  missile  against  England  as  a 
matter  of  rumination  to  those  who  are  most 
concerned  with  the  safety  of  America  or  Eng- 
land or  Ireland  to-day. 

In  1897  the  oft-mooted  project  of  an  Anglo-American  Alli- 
ance was  prominently  before  the  public.  It  was  Davitt  who 
defeated  it.  He  felt  that  a  special  responsibility  lay  on  him 
in  this  matter.  It  was  largely  owing  to  the  movement  that 
he  had  initiated  that  the  minds  of  Irish-Americans  were  altered 
so  as  to  make  it  possible  for  such  a  proposition  as  an  alhance 
with  Great  Britain  to  be  even  entertained.  In  the  changed 
situation  created  by  the  Gladstone  offer  of  peace  and  goodwill 
he  had  rejoiced  to  find  in  1886  the  temper  of  Irish- America  so 
friendly  towards  this  measure  of  conciliation.  But  England 
had  turned  her  back  on  Gladstone  and  had  disowned  his  noble 
efforts  to  heal  the  breach  between  the  two  nations.     Had  it 


WINNING  THE  UNITED  STATES    159 

been  otherwise  Davitt  himself  might  have  been  an  ambassador 
of  peace  making  a  free  Ireland  the  link  between  the  democra- 
cies of  England  and  America.  As  it  was,  he  felt  that  the  occa- 
sion was  one  in  which  no  opportunity  ought  to  be  lost  of  show- 
ing England  that  she  really  had  something  substantial  to  gain 
from  the  freedom  and  friendship  of  Ireland,  apart  from  the 
intrinsic  value  of  having  a  contented  nation  at  her  side.  It 
was  the  time  to  teach  the  world  that  Irishmen  in  the  United 
States  were  true  to  their  motherland.  So  he  crossed  to  the 
States  and  in  a  brief  campaign  in  the  proper  quarters  secured 
that  the  Anglo-American  Arbitration  Treaty,  which  was  ex- 
pected to  be  the  germ  of  a  formal  alliance,  should  be  rejected  by 
the  United  States  Senate  through  the  Irish  influence  in  that 
body. 

Cleveland  thought  it  a  "wicked  thing," 
but  it  was  a  transatlantic  riposte  to  the  jubilee 
coercion  act  in  Ireland.  Nor  was  it  the  last 
time  that  Irish  pressure  prevailed  against 
American  friendship  for  England.  The  in- 
tensified feeling  in  America  would  not  permit 
McKinley  even  to  present  a  flag  to  the  Anglo- 
American  hospital  ship  Maine  during  the  Boer 
War.  The  celebration  of  the  centenary  of  the 
Peace  of  Ghent  was  largely  discounted  by 
Irish  irritation  over  the  situation  in  Ulster. 
However  anxious  the  friends  of  England  were 
to  oblige  her  with  an  official  token  of  alliance, 
it  was  frustrated  on  the  ground  that  the  Irish 
question  remained  unsettled. 

For  a  hundred  years,  directly  or  indirectly, 


160  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

and  unsuspected  by  their  blinded  diplomatists 
during  most  of  the  time,  England  and  Germany 
had  been  competing  for  the  winning  of  America. 
The  unforeseen  history  of  the  world  was  yet 
to  turn  on  her  alliance,  and  there  was  often  as 
good  a  chance  of  an  understanding  with  one 
as  with  the  other.  Each  in  turn  had  contrib- 
uted enormously  to  the  population  of  the  re- 
public, but  each  in  turn  incurred  its  most  bit- 
ter hostility,  which  in  Germany's  case  was  to 
prove  fatal.  England  had  the  American  tra- 
dition and  the  Irish  immigration  in  the  scales 
against  her,  but  she  had  in  her  favour  what 
Bismarck  truly  called  the  greatest  political  fact 
of  modern  times,  ''the  inherited  and  permanent 
fact  that  North  America  speaks  English." 

From  the  time  of  Frederick  the  Great  Prus- 
sia manifested  a  traditional  friendship  for  the 
United  States,  which  might  have  survived  more 
than  one  European  cataclysm.  Germany  had 
no  ambitions  in  America.  German  professor- 
dom  looked  on  the  American  republic  as  a  kind 
of  cloud-cuckoodom,  to  which,  however,  they 
were  very  glad  to  migrate  after  the  revolution 
of  1848,  leaving  the  German  people  to  the 
Junker.  The  German  idealists  fought  well  for 
American  idealism  in  the  Civil  War,  as  is 
brought  out  in  the  chapter  of  The  Crisis,  by 


WINNING  THE   UNITED   STx\TES     161 

Winston  Churchill,  entitled  **Ricliter's  Scar." 
German  public  opinion  and  German  finance 
were  not  hostile  to  the  North.  In  return  New 
England  feeling  favoured  the  Germans  in  the 
war  of  1870. 

A  great  German  wedge  had  penetrated  the 
Continent  and  had  proven  its  worth  and  value. 
During  the  nineteenth  century  there  were  five 
million  German  immigrants,  four  million  Irish 
and  only  three  million  from  the  rest  of  Great 
Britain.  They  combined  to  turn  the  scale  of 
rivalry  against  the  Anglo-Saxon,  who  at  the 
time  of  the  Revolution  had  amounted  to  a 
million  and  a  half,  while  German  and  Irish 
were  roughly  half  a  million  apiece.  F.  J. 
Turner  says  of  the  German  settlers:  "W^ith 
their  Scotch-Irish  neighbours  they  formed  the 
outer  edge  of  the  tide  of  pioneers."  With  the 
end  of  the  century  Anglo-Saxon  stock  was  reck- 
oned twenty  million,  German  as  much  as 
eighteen,  and  Celtic,  including  Scotch  and 
Irish,  fourteen.  The  Irish  and  the  German 
did  not  come  into  contact,  except  under  church 
auspices.  As  a  rule  their  settlements  did  not 
coincide.  In  his  work  on  the  Germans  in 
America  Faust  describes  how  in  Pennsylvania 
"the  Germans  are  most  numerous  where  the 
limestone  appears,  while  the  Irish  are  settled 


162  THE   IRISH  ISSUE 

on  the  slate  foundations,  the  Irish  taking  land 
well-watered  near  the  big  rivers  and  the  Ger- 
mans with  a  better  eye  for  good  land  choosing 
that  on  which  there  grew  the  best  trees."  In 
parts  the  German  overran  the  Irish.  McAll- 
isterstown,  an  Irish  settlement,  became  Han- 
over. In  his  History  of  Virginia  Kercheval 
gives  a  curious  account  of  the  German  settlers 
caricaturing  St.  Patrick's  Day,  while  the  Irish 
retaliated  with  a  burlesque  of  St.  Michael's. 
But  the  Celt  and  the  Teuton  combined  in  their 
disregard  of  Puritanism  and  Sabbatarianism, 
from  which  they  largely  delivered  the  Ameri- 
can continent. 

The  German  influences  were  strictly  divided 
into  a  purely  secular  and  an  ecclesiastical  line. 
The  former  developed  socialism  in  America, 
while  intellectually  it  affected  the  centres  of 
American  education.  As  Andrew  D.  White 
said:  "Although  Great  Britain  is  generally  re- 
garded as  the  mother  of  the  United  States,  Ger- 
many has  from  an  intellectual  standpoint  be- 
come more  and  more  the  second  mother  of  the 
American  republic."  The  interchange  of  pro- 
fessors with  Germany  and  the  planting  of  a 
Teutonic  museum  at  Harvard  marked  the  last 
stage  of  this  tendency. 

Ecclesiastically  the  Germans  threw  out  great 


WINNING  THE  UNITED  STATES    163 

Catholic  communities  throughout  the  conti- 
nent, with  a  tendency  to  clash  with  the  Irish- 
American  hierarchy.  Milwaukee  produced  the 
first  German  bishopric.  Other  more  or  less 
German  sees  followed.  The  chief  difference 
between  the  German  and  Irish  Catholics  was 
that  the  former  retained  their  language.  From 
the  day  of  their  arrival  the  Germans  struggled 
to  retain  their  language  in  pulpit  and  school. 
The  nationalist  movement  initiated  by  Ke- 
hensly,  acting  from  a  European  source  of  in- 
spiration, brought  it  to  a  crisis.  Language  was 
opposed  to  language,  churchman  to  churchman, 
and  Pan-Germanism  to  Americanism.  The 
English-speaking  Irishmen  at  the  head  of  the 
church,  led  by  Cardinal  Gibbons,  opposed  and 
defeated  the  movement  as  an  anti-American 
tendency  in  the  heart  of  the  church.  From 
that  moment  the  German  language  was  doomed 
in  America.  The  conflict  was  too  short  and 
decisive  to  leave  scars.  German  Catholics  be- 
came the  best  of  citizens  in  the  second  and  third 
generations.  But  even  in  a  united  church  it  is 
interesting  to  trace  the  racial  trenches  of  Irish 
and  German.  Of  the  archbishops  as  a  rule 
some  eleven  are  Irish,  three  German.  Of 
bishops  threescore  are  Irish  to  ten  of  German 
name.     Of   the   whole    Catholic   clergy    it   is 


164  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

claimed  that  a  third  have  a  German  name,  but 
the  great  majority  of  the  remainder  carry  a 
Celtic  denominator. 

The  German- American  would  have  been  glad 
enough  to  merge  himself  into  America,  retain- 
ing the  same  memory  of  the  Germany  which 
had  no  room  for  him  as  the  French-Canadian 
does  of  France.  But  an  unkind  destiny  had 
turned  both  America  and  Germany  at  about 
the  same  time  to  a  future  on  the  w^ater.  At 
the  same  time  that  American  fleets  were  reliev- 
ing Spain  of  her  colonies,  German  fleets  were 
waiting  for  the  chance  to  gather  them  up. 
From  that  moment  a  tragedy  was  in  store  for 
the  German-American.  Prince  Henry  of  Prus- 
sia administered  a  friendly  warning  to  Admiral 
Dewey  as  he  left  Hong  Kong  for  Manila,  but 
Admiral  Diedrichs  made  himself  as  unpleasant 
to  the  American  fleet  as  possible.  The  war 
with  Spain  was  a  severe  blow  to  German  ex- 
pansion and  German-Americans  felt  that  the 
interests  of  the  Fatherland  had  not  been  served. 
Carl  Schurz  wished  America  to  decline  the 
Philippines  because  it  meant  accepting  British 
protection.  "British  friendship  is  a  good  thing 
to  have  but  perhaps  not  so  good  a  thing  to 
need."  Holleben  induced  Pauncefote  to  sign 
a   general   plea    against  the  war,   which    was 


WINNING  THE   UNITED   STATES     165 

used  afterwards  against  Anglo-American  senti- 
ment. 

But  the  war  with  Spain  was  the  occasion 
of  restoring  the  long-lost  relations  with  Eng- 
land. The  delivery  of  Cuba  appealed  to  Eng- 
lishmen, and  the  unpopularity  of  the  United 
States  in  Europe  drew  Americans  to  their  glo- 
riously isolated  cousins.  While  Germany  an- 
grily fumbled  with  her  uncompleted  fleet,  Eng- 
land held  the  ring  in  the  Far  East.  The  sea 
battle  of  Manila  seemed  an  echo  of  the  Armada, 
as  the  last  of  the  "Indies"  fell  from  the  hand 
of  the  Hapsburg.  The  good  feeling  engendered 
might  have  brought  about  an  agreement,  had 
there  been  some  common  cause  or  crusade. 
Chamberlain  had  already  meditated  the  matter 
with  Secretary  Hay.  "Shoulder  to  shoulder 
we  could  command  peace  the  world  over.  I 
should  rejoice  in  an  occasion  in  which  we  could 
fight  side  by  side."  Had  it  not  been  for  the 
Boer  War,  England  and  America  might  have 
scented  a  common  foe  on  the  horizon.  Ger- 
many was  intriguing  equally  with  Kruger  in 
the  Transvaal  and  Aguinaldo  in  the  Philip- 
pines. But  the  unhappy  Boer  War  raised  a 
torrent  of  denunciation  in  America.  To  a  re- 
public, a  republic  is  always  a  republic.  Boer 
commandos  seemed  conspicuously  kin  to  the 


166  THE   IRISH   ISSUE 

Revolutionary  farmers.  Hay  wrote  mournfully 
in  1900:  ''If  it  were  not  for  our  domestic  poli- 
tics we  could  and  should  join  with  England, 
whose  interests  are  identical  with  ours,  and 
make  our  ideas  prevail.  But  in  the  present 
morbid  state  of  the  public  mind  that  is  not  to 
be  thought  of,  and  we  must  look  idly  on  and 
see  her  making  terms  with  Germany  instead 
of  us."  There  was  considerable  insight  in 
Hay's  words,  for  the  great  unspoken  question 
in  English  diplomacy  for  a  century  was  whether 
America  or  Germany  was  to  be  her  eventual 
ally.  The  shortsightedness  of  politicians  and 
dynasties  favoured  the  latter.  In  1814  Prus- 
sia was  an  ally,  and  America  a  foe.  A  century 
later  began  the  war  which  was  to  reverse  the 
situation.  Chamberlain  had  wished  to  have 
both  as  allies,  but  this  was  not  to  be.  Prussian- 
ism  and  Americanism  cannot  dwell  together. 

As  a  result  of  the  defeat  of  Spain  Germany 
had  discovered  that  America  was  a  force  in  the 
offing  of  the  world  to  be  reckoned  with.  In 
1899  Secretary  Hay  wrote:  "The  Emperor  is 
nervously  anxious  to  be  on  good  terms  with  us, 
on  his  own  terms,  bien  entendu''  The  Boer 
War  had  dissipated  the  friendship  for  England 
which  had  sprung  up  in  America.  There  had 
arisen  what  Hay  called  ''a  mad-dog  hatred  of 


WINNING  THE  UNITED  STATES     167 

England"  and  he  lamented,  ''that  we  should 
be  compelled  to  refuse  the  assistance  of  the 
greatest  Power  in  the  world  in  carrying  out  our 
own  policy,  because  all  Irishmen  are  Demo- 
crats and  some  Germans  are  fools,  is  enough  to 
drive  a  man  mad."  Before  the  Boer  War  was 
ended  Germany  took  the  opportunity  to  send 
Prince  Henry  on  a  visit  to  America  to  fish  dis- 
creetly in  anti-British  waters.  The  attitude  of 
Germany  to  her  exiles  had  previously  been  as 
unto  apostates.  A  great  attempt  was  now 
made  to  rally  their  numbers  into  political  sym- 
pathy with  the  Fatherland.  To  the  German- 
American,  Prince  Henry  appeared  in  the  light 
of  a  travelling  anachronism,  but  results  did  fol- 
low his  visit.  The  objects  of  German  diplo- 
macy in  America  seem  to  have  aimed  at  over- 
riding the  Monroe  Doctrine  in  South  America 
in  Germany's  behalf  and  checking  British  influ- 
ence through  a  resurgence  of  Irish  animosity. 
The  Boer  War  had  revived  Fenianism,  and  very 
soon  German  sympathy  began  to  extend  itself 
to  the  Irish  cause.  This  curious  development 
was  appreciated  at  the  time  by  the  Irish  sage, 
Mr.  Dooley,  with  the  combined  wisdom  of 
saloon  and  Solon: 

'Twas  not  long  after  when  I  heard  a  man  singing  The  Wearin' 
of  the  Green  down  the  street  and  in  come  Schwartzmeister. 


168  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

"Faugh  a  ballagh,  get  out  of  the  way,"  says  he,  meaning  to  be 
polite.  "Lieb  vaterlaiid,"  says  I,  and  we  had  a  drink  together. 
"Glory  be,"  meditated  Mr.  Dooley,  "who  ever  thought  the 
Irish'd  live  to  see  the  day  when  they'd  be  freed  by  the  Dutch.?" 

It  was  quite  possible  for  the  American  tradi- 
tion to  be  hostile  to  England  and  her  policy  to 
be  otherwise.  This  has  often  been  the  case  in 
modern  times,  and  accounts  for  the  extraordi- 
nary differences  of  opinion  between  Washington 
and  the  American  people  as  a  whole  towards 
England.  The  American  Government  and  peo- 
ple have  been  unitedly  hostile  against  England 
in  occasions  of  stress,  during  the  Venezuela  cri- 
sis, during  the  Civil  War,  and  during  the  Na- 
poleonic conflict.  Otherwise  the  government 
has  not  fostered  the  popular  dislike. 

Napoleon  had  never  levied  taxes  in  the 
States,  and  American  feeling  was  with  him 
against  England.  By  the  War  of  1812  America 
prolonged  and  intensified  the  struggle.  Yet 
as  Mr.  Wilson  wrote  in  his  History:  ''Napoleon 
was  the  enemy  of  the  civilised  world,  had  been 
America's  own  enemy  in  disguise  and  had 
thrown  off  the  disguise.  .  .  .  England's  policy 
had  cut  America  to  the  quick  and  had  become 
intolerable  and  it  did  not  lessen  America's 
exasperation  that  that  policy  had  been  a 
measure  of  war  against  the  Corsican,  not 
against  her." 


WINNING  THE  UNITED   STATES    169 

To  substitute  '*the  Brandenburger "  for  the 
Corsican  gives  the  exact  historical  parallel  with 
which  the  historian  was  himself  called  to  deal 
as  a  maker  as  well  as  a  writer  of  American  his- 
tory. 

After  the  Civil  War  America  felt  little  stom- 
ach for  expansion,  though  the  home  demesne 
was  completed  by  the  purchase  of  Alaska. 
But  the  Senate  would  not  allow  Seward  to  ob- 
tain possession  of  St.  Thomas  or  Grant  of  San 
Domingo.  Only  gradually  it  was  realised  that 
Cuba  and  Hawaii  were  vital  strategic  points, 
but  American  interference  could  only  be  sanc- 
tioned at  home  in  the  guise  of  humanitarianism. 
The  manifest  destiny  was  not  yet. 

With  the  passing  of  the  world  drama  from 
the  Mediterranean  and  the  Atlantic,  it  seemed 
as  though  the  supreme  struggle  in  the  future 
must  be  for  the  mastery  of  the  Pacific.  Amer- 
ica had  touched  the  Japanese  power  to  birth. 
Russia  was  hasting  towards  her  faraway  out- 
let to  the  ocean.  America  and  Germany  found 
themselves  picking  up  stations  in  the  South 
Seas.  Under  President  Harrison  Samoa  was 
the  scene  of  some  high-souled  administration 
on  the  part  of  America,  which  made  the  subse- 
quent German  control  particularly  bitter  to 
the  natives.  Under  Harrison  the  Queen  of 
Hawaii  was  overthrown  and  replaced  by  a  pro- 


170  THE   IRISH  ISSUE 

visional  government.  The  ethics  were  those  of 
a  peaceful  usurpation,  and  Cleveland  coming 
into  office  repudiated  the  action.  But  the  war 
with  Spain  forced  Hawaii  into  American  con- 
trol. It  was  seen  to  be  the  very  door-step  to 
the  Pacific. 

Cuba  brought  America  into  the  realm  of 
world  politics.  For  half  a  century  Cuba  had 
lain  like  Lazarus  at  America's  gates,  until  her 
sores  overflowed,  and  America  intervened.  As 
many  Americans  tried  to  avert  as  to  precipitate 
the  war,  which  was  duly  declared  and  sum- 
marily finished.  McKinley  was  able  to  claim 
that  "no  nation  was  ever  more  fortunate  in 
war  or  more  honourable  in  negotiations  for 
peace."  America  stood  like  a  Lochinvar  among 
nations.  At  the  same  time  the  negotiations 
taught  Americans  that  they  had  few  friends  in 
Europe,  disclosing  to  those  who  had  eyes  a 
possible  ally  in  England  and  an  incipient 
enemy  in  Germany.  American  imperialism  and 
pacificism  both  took  tremendous  root  as  a  re- 
sult of  the  war.  Corresponding  to  the  "Little 
Englanders,"  the  lesser  Americans  waxed 
strong,  convinced  that  the  whole  of  the  Philip- 
pine archipelago  was  not  worth  the  life  of  an 
American  boy. 

As  a  people  Americans  were  still  nervous  of 


WINNING  THE  UNITED   STATES     171 

playing  any  international  role.  It  was  a  daring 
advance  for  Secretary  Hay  to  proclaim  '*the 
open  door"  in  China,  especially  as  it  entailed 
an  expedition  in  company  with  other  Powers 
more  predatory  than  Christian. 

It  was  in  China  that  American  and  British 
troops  first  took  the  field  together,  England 
being  the  first  to  respond  to  Hay's  idea  of  an 
''open  door."  There,  too,  they  shared  a  com- 
mon revulsion  at  the  atrocities  committed  by 
the  German  contingent  on  the  hapless  Chinese, 
atrocities  hushed  up  by  discreet  diplomacy. 
America  had  become  imperial,  but  with  philan- 
thropic reservations.  She  took  over  the  Pan- 
ama Canal  (which  incidentally  she  had  dug) 
for  the  benefit  of  mankind.  She  conquered 
Cuba,  and  to  give  Cuba  freedom  she  captured 
the  Philippines  and  paid  for  them  afterwards. 
She  sent  troops  to  China,  but  alone  of  the  ag- 
gressive Powers  returned  her  share  of  the  in- 
demnity for  educational  purposes.  She  paid 
handsomely  for  the  friars'  lands  in  the  Philip- 
pines when  confiscation  was  the  European 
precedent,  and  she  has  superfluously  turned  the 
other  cheek  in  Mexico.  The  fact  is  that  the 
American  Government  is  more  Christian  than 
any  other  in  its  dealings  with  alien  peoples. 

Whether  she  willed  it  or  not,  America  had 


172  THE   IRISH   ISSUE 

become  a  world  Power,  Her  foreign  relations 
by  the  end  of  the  century  bore  traces  and 
streaks  from  the  international  mangle.  Mr. 
Dooley  brilliantly  described  them  at  the  time, 
and  it  is  doubtful  if  the  historian  could  better 
summarise  them: 

You  will  be  glad  to  know  that  the  friendship  of  this  country 
with  Germany  planted  in  Samoa  and  nourished  at  Manila  has 
grown  to  such  a  point  as  to  satisfy  the  most  critical  German- 
American.  With  England  we  are  on  such  terms  as  must 
please  every  Canadian  but  not  on  any  such  terms  as  would 
make  any  Irishman  think  we  are  on  such  terms  as  we  ought 
not  to  be! 

The  symbol  of  American  imperialism  was  the 
Panama  Canal,  which  appealed  to  the  Ameri- 
can people  as  a  mystic  fulfilment  of  the  original 
dream  of  Columbus,  desiring  to  sail  west  to  the 
East  Indies.  The  overnight  recognition  of  the 
republic  of  Panama  in  the  teeth  of  dilatory 
Colombia  and  the  organised  dictatorship  under 
which  the  work  was  completed  struck  the  note 
of  a  progressive  and  imperial  Power. 

Later  in  the  year  of  Prince  Henry's  visit  had 
come  a  joint  challenge  to  the  Monroe  Doctrine 
in  South  America,  engineered  by  Germany, 
which  the  English  Foreign  Office  must  bear  the 
discredit  of  adopting.  The  attempt  of  Ger- 
many, France,  and  England  to  bring  pressure 


WINNING  THE  UNITED   STATES     173 

in  Venezuela  did,  however,  cause  as  much  anger 
among  the  Enghsh  as  among  the  American 
people  against  the  officials  of  Balfour's  govern- 
ment. Before  long  England  began  to  see  the 
necessity  of  making  renunciations  and  even  of 
jettisoning  interests  to  avoid  a  clash  with 
America  in  any  part  of  the  world.  In  1896 
Roosevelt  had  said  the  Monroe  Doctrine  would 
be  asserted  "if  Germany  sought  to  acquire 
Cuba  from  Spain  or  St.  Thomas  from  the 
Danes."  The  threat  to  Venezuela  had  been 
made  to  enable  Germany  to  occupy  the  Mar- 
garita Islands,  but  though  England  was  acting 
like  a  blind  dupe  America  was  awake  in  the 
person  of  her  President.  Before  Roosevelt's 
private  ultimatum  to  Holleben,  the  German 
ambassador,  the  threatening  warships  were 
withdrawn.  On  the  other  side,  the  German 
foreign  service  defeated  every  effort  of  America 
to  purchase  the  Danish  West  Indies  in  the 
Danish  Parliament,  while  the  Hamburg-Ameri- 
can Line  began  to  pave  the  way  towards  a  Ger- 
man occupation.  But  American  policy  was 
fixed,  and  by  taking  over  the  administration  of 
revenue  in  Nicaragua,  Haiti,  and  San  Domingo, 
American  officials  cleverly  prevented  the  in- 
gress of  German  creditors. 

Curiously  enough,  Germany  could  not  har- 


174  THE   IRISH  ISSUE 

ass  America  without  bringing  her  closer  to 
England  and  vice  versa.  Germany's  gesticula- 
tions in  the  open  or  subterraneous  diplomacies 
found  England  and  America  in  unconscious 
partnership.  Germany's  efforts  to  acquire  a 
base  or  a  colony  in  South  America  were  equally 
checked  by  the  Monroe  Doctrine  and  the  Brit- 
ish fleet.  It  was  difficult  to  distinguish  the  line 
where  the  opposition  of  each  began  or  ended, 
so  imperceptibly  did  they  coalesce.  By  1911 
Maximilian  Harden  had  realised  that  ''Great 
Britain  and  North  America  tend  to  form  a 
community  of  interests.  On  the  two  oceans 
the  Anglo-Saxons  of  the  two  continents  group 
themselves  together  in  unity  of  will." 

A  life-and-death  struggle  now  arose  in  which 
destiny  played  a  stronger  part  than  any  diplo- 
macy in  fixing  or  laying  the  train  of  America's 
undeveloped  international  policy,  whether  it 
should  take  a  hostile  or  indifferent  or  co-opera- 
tive attitude  towards  the  British  Empire. 
What  the  British  Foreign  Office  had  failed  to 
achieve,  German  militarism  brought  about. 
Henry  Adams  could  not  help  remarking:  "The 
grisly  terror  which  in  twenty  years  effected 
what  Adamses  had  tried  for  two  hundred 
in  vain — frightened  England  into  America's 
arms." 


WINNING  THE  UNITED  STATES    175 

The  winning  of  America  was  no  slight  thing 
in  the  course  of  the  world's  history,  and  it  is 
interesting  to  quote  the  clearest  prophecy  on 
the  subject,  made  by  Professor  A.  B.  Hart  in 
1901: 

"If  there  is  to  be  in  the  coming  century  a 
great  battle  of  Armageddon,  once  more  Europe 
against  the  Huns,  we  can  no  more  help  taking 
our  part  with  the  hosts  of  freedom  than  we  can 
help  educating  our  children,  building  our 
churches,  or  maintaining  the  rights  of  the 
individual."  It  may  be  inferred  that  what 
won  America  to  the  cause  of  the  Allies  was  not 
even  friendship  for  France  or  unity  of  interest 
with  England  so  much  as  innate  Americanism. 

Nothing  is  more  marked  in  the  thought  of 
modern  America  than  the  discovery  that  she 
was  being  gradually  won  or  induced  or  tempted 
to  enter  the  international  vortex.  Europe  had 
for  so  long  been  thought  of  in  the  guise  of 
another  planet  or  other  world  that  Paris  was 
humorously  mentioned  as  a  place  where  good 
Americans  went  after  death.  Like  England, 
America  had  developed  an  isolation  theory. 
England's  had  broken  down  under  the  com- 
bined influence  of  German  pressure  and  Ed- 
wardian diplomacy,  while  Olney's  algebraical 
equation  that  "American  non-intervention  in 


176  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

Europe  implied  European  non-intervention  in 
America"  was  found  as  impracticable  as  all 
mathematical  dicta  in  practice.  American  in- 
tervention in  Asia  was  a  prelude  to  the  same  in 
Europe.  It  was  a  long  way  from  Nebraska  to 
the  summer  palace  of  Pekin,  but  American  arms 
had  reached  there.  Under  Hay  America  had 
begun  to  protest  against  the  treatment  of  Jews 
in  Russia  and  Roumania.  Every  small  nation 
in  distress  tended  to  appeal  to  America  and 
not  to  Csesar.  The  President  of  the  United 
States  and  not  the  German  Emperor  began  to 
be  hailed  as  the  universal  referee.  Roosevelt 
once  expressed  the  very  proper  wish  that  "our 
questions  could  be  settled  on  their  own  merits 
and  not  complicated  by  quarrels  between  Eng- 
land and  Ireland  or  France  and  Germany." 
In  the  present  crisis  of  the  world  America  has 
taken  a  paciJBcatory  part  in  the  former  and  the 
part  of  a  belligerent  in  the  latter  of  these  his- 
toric quarrels.  Their  final  settlement  seems  to 
depend  more  on  American  intervention  than 
on  any  other  element.  The  United  States  have 
finally  entered  the  circle  of  the  Powers  not 
merely  as  a  co-Power,  but  as  the  deciding  and 
world-compelling  one.  The  bolts  of  war  and 
the  branches  of  peace  are  equally  in  the  grip  of 
the  American  eagle. 


X 

IRISH    AMERICA    DURING   THE    WAR 

The  sentiment  of  •Irish  America  during  the 
world  war,  and  in  particular  towards  England, 
vjaried  enormously.  At  moments  it  was  pro- 
nounced, and  at  others  it  was  impossible  to 
define.  During  the  first  year  it  was  uncertain 
and,  until  the  Dublin  rising,  pro- Ally.  After  the 
executions  it  was  anti-British  and  with  Amer- 
ica's entry  into  the  war  it  resolved  itself  into  a 
set  pro-Americanism.  But  cross-currents  and 
complications,  both  of  history  and  of  psychol- 
ogy, made  it  as  clouded  and  uncertain  generally 
as  it  was  vivid  and  frank  on  stirring  occasions. 

At  the  commencement  of  the  war  the  Celt 
showed  himself  instinctively  anti-Teutonic. 
The  bulk  of  the  leading  and  assimilated  Irish- 
Americans,  though  with  violent  exceptions  from 
the  outset,  were  satisfied  at  England's  entry 
into  the  war  and  gladly  expectant  that  Irish 
regiments  would  share  in  a  speedy  redemption 
of  Belgium.  As  regards  Ireland,  Irish  America 
paused.     It  was  realised  that  the  destiny  of 

177 


178  THE   IRISH   ISSUE 

Ireland  was  in  one  man's  hand.  The  near  ap- 
proach of  home  rule  had  left  the  extremists  in 
America  in  a  minority.  The  apparent  political 
triumph  of  Redmond  had  placed  a  huge  con- 
stitutional sentiment  behind  him,  which  only 
its  actuality  in  the  form  of  an  Irish  Parliament 
was  needed  to  make  amenable  to  fair  diplo- 
macy and  reasonable  propaganda  throughout 
the  American  continent.  But  the  question  was 
whether  he  would  succeed  in  wresting  home 
rule  from  England  or  whether  England  would 
succeed  in  wresting  his  prize  from  him.  One 
of  the  golden  hours  of  history  was  present,  in 
which  the  silver  minutes  slowly  passed,  never 
to  return.  Subsequent  hours  were  to  be  of 
iron. 

As  soon  as  it  was  seen  in  America  that  Red- 
mond was  recruiting  Irishmen  as  a  member  of 
the  British  Commons  and  not  as  an  Irish  pre- 
mier, the  position  of  the  extremists  became 
clear  and  their  propaganda  made  way. 

But  the  great  Irish  financiers  and  industrial- 
ists were  pro-Ally  and  with  the  bulk  of  Ameri- 
cans of  Irish  name  remained  so.  The  hier- 
archy, chieftained  by  three  Irish  cardinals,  oc- 
cupied a  variety  of  positions  within  the  largess 
of  neutrality.  The  great  German  element  in 
their  flocks  naturally  proved  a  counterweight 


IRISH  AMERICA  179 

even  to  the  Belgian  tragedy,  and  after  the 
Dublin  rising  the  Irish  element  passed  out  of 
control,  not  that  the  American  hierarchy  affect 
any  political  control  of  their  spiritual  subjects, 
but  that  they  are  generally  made  responsible 
for  any  widely  expressed  view  among  Catholics. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  at  times  a  passing 
view  was  pro-German  or  at  least  pro-Austrian, 
with  modifications  in  favour  of  Belgium  and 
France.  That  of  the  Irish  rank  and  file  was 
the  curious  but  not  inconsistent  one  of  being 
anti-British  but  pro-French.  Admitting  dif- 
ferences in  degree  and  circumstance,  they  were 
equally  opposed  to  Germany  in  Belgium  and 
to  England  in  Ireland.  But  conclusions  were 
liable  to  be  as  mixed  as  motives,  some  declaring 
they  were  pro-Ally  because  they  were  pro-Irish 
and  others  that  they  were  pro-German  for  the 
same  reason.  Some  said  they  were  pro- Ally 
because  home  rule  was  a  fact,  and  others  that 
they  were  pro-German  because  it  was  not. 
Casement's  description  of  the  Home  Rule  Bill 
as  "a  promissory  note  payable  after  death" 
made  it  immediately  a  disintegrating  object  of 
dispute. 

The  first  ominous  sign  was  when  the  Irish 
World  withdrew  its  support  from  Redmond. 
Under  the  editorship  of  Patrick  Ford  it  had 


180  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

been  to  the  Irish  party  what  the  London  Times 
was  to  the  Tories.  John  Devoy,  the  editor  of 
the  Gaelic-American,  came  out  of  the  wilder- 
ness after  obscure  but  consistent  years  and 
undertook  the  championship  of  Germany. 
Amiable  to  meet,  vitrioKc  of  pen,  he  came  back 
from  the  past,  the  last  of  the  real  Fenians,  but 
as  an  old  soldier  of  France  he  must  have  felt 
a  pang  that  he  and  Germany  were  become  each 
other's  tools.  But  the  iron  of  the  British  fet- 
ter had  gnawed  into  his  strong  soul  and  he 
made  himself  the  most  anti-British  editor  in 
America. 

Though  the  Irish-German  press  became  a 
reality,  it  was  not  a  genuine  growth  of  Irish 
America.  It  was  obviously  an  attempt  to  in- 
fluence rather  than  to  express  Irish  feeling.  A 
naively  preposterous  book  called  The  King,  the 
Kaiser,  and  Irish  Freedom  was  typical  of  the 
whole  attempt  to  distort  Irish  sentiment.  It 
was  written  by  Mr.  McGuire,  a  previous  mayor 
of  Syracuse,  and  figured  in  the  literature  of  the 
prison  camp  in  Germany,  though  the  statement 
that  "Prince  von  Btilow  was  a  very  devout 
Catholic"  must  have  considerably  astonished 
any  German  who  chanced  to  read  it.  It  was 
followed  by  another  volume  of  which  the  alle- 
gorical frontispiece  seemed  to  convey  as  Ger- 


IRISH  AMERICA  181 

many's  message  to  Ireland:  ''All  this  eflSeiency 
I  will  give  unto  you  if  you  will  bow  down  and 
worship  me." 

If  the  candid  historian  records  such  comfort 
and  help  as  the  Germans  have  gleaned  from 
some  Irishmen  in  America,  it  is  only  fair  to  em- 
phasise the  great  silent  outburst  of  loyalty  of 
the  mass  to  America  after  the  entry  of  their 
country  into  the  war,  of  which  the  perennial 
testimony  will  be  the  impressive  and  heartening 
manifestoes  of  the  three  cardinals  and  the 
thousands  and  thousands  of  Irish-Americans  in 
the  regular  and  drafted  armies,  amounting  to 
between  20  and  30  per  cent  of  the  whole,  whose 
only  international  politics  were  the  two  words, 
"America  first !"  It  was  their  silent  devotion 
and  their  trustfulness  in  the  meaning  of  the 
President's  message  that  made  American  opin- 
ion insistent  that  Ireland  should  be  included 
among  the  small  nationalities,  whose  place  in 
world  democracy  was  to  be  made  safe. 

The  Irish-American  press  must  largely  be  dis- 
carded as  an  indicator  of  the  opinion  of  the 
Irish  in  America  before  or  after  the  entry  of 
America  into  the  war. 

Amid  this  flood  only  the  New  York  Advocate 
can  be  said  amongst  Irish  papers  to  have  re- 
mained independent.     With  the  new  year  of 


182  THE   IRISH   ISSUE 

1916  the  sympathisers  with  Mr,  Redmond's 
poHcy  started  a  weekly  organ  called  Ireland^ 
which  was  brilliantly  edited  by  J.  C.  Walsh.  It 
very  soon  attracted  the  intellectual  and  con- 
servative attention  of  the  race.  It  was  re- 
sponsible for  a  famous  article  by  Cardinal 
Gibbons,  who  in  giving  his  recollections  of 
Archbishop  MacHale  stated: 

He  had  absolutely  no  faith  in  armed  rebellion.  The  Young 
Ireland  movement  of  '48  nearly  broke  his  heart.  He  wanted 
the  people  to  get  the  land,  to  have  Catholic  schools  and  to 
preserve  and  love  their  own  language,  literature  and  music. 
He  saw  the  necessity  of  the  Repeal  of  the  Union.  He  was  as 
we  should  say  now,  a  Home  Ruler,  but  he  thought  of  it  rather 
as  something  which  would  aid  the  preservation  of  Irish  na- 
tionality, and  he  ever  believed  that  Ireland  must  help  herself, 
and  that  she  should  not  be  and  ought  not  to  be  dependent 
upon  any  foreign  power.  As  to  his  attitude  to  England,  it 
was  of  course,  as  was  to  be  expected  of  all  Irishmen  at  that 
time,  hostile.  But  he  never  thought  separation  from  the  Em- 
pire practicable,  and  he  never  disliked  the  English  people. 
He  ever  believed  that  the  English  people  were  neither  cognisant 
of  nor  assented  to  the  acts  of  the  English  Government  nor  the 
English  Garrison  in  Ireland,  and  he  had  the  warmest  affection 
for  many  individual  Englishmen.  He  would  have  rejoiced  to 
see  the  day  when  England  should  ally  herself  with  France 
and  Ireland. 

But  the  delays  and  indecisions  at  home 
gradually  sapped  the  Redmondite  position  in 
America.  The  president  of  the  United  Irish 
League,   Michael  J.   Ryan,   drew   aside,   and, 


IRISH  AMERICA  183 

though  Mr,  Redmond  in  loyalty  to  old  friend- 
ship refused  to  allow  his  deposition,  the  League 
wasted  away  as  a  popular  force,  and  its  place 
in  the  popular  eye  was  taken  by  the  Friends  of 
Irish  Freedom  and  other  Sinn  Fein  organisa- 
tions. 

The  great  bulk  of  the  Irish  remained  aloof, 
as  suspicious  of  Germany  as  their  fathers  had 
been  of  England.  German  propagandists  over- 
did their  mission.  The  Clan-na-Gael  had  an 
able  and,  because  fanatical,  a  disinterested 
leader  in  Judge  Daniel  Cohalan,  who  showed 
himself  ready  to  go  to  any  length  and  to  make 
any  alliance  in  furtherance  of  an  Irish  repub- 
lic. With  John  Devoy  he  even  welcomed 
German  assistance  to  the  rising  in  Dublin, 
which  owing  to  typical  duplicity  on  the  part 
of  the  Germans  was  barely  forthcoming. 

It  is  now  customary  to  charge  such  men 
with  receiving  German  money,  but  it  is  to  be 
observed  that  they  would  have  just  as  eagerly 
assisted  France  had  there  been  a  war  with 
England  twenty  years  previously.  Painful  as 
their  action  must  be  to  the  majority  of  Irish- 
Americans,  it  was  not  done  out  of  love  or  ad- 
miration of  the  Germans.  As  one  of  them  ex- 
cused himself  in  a  phrase  that  the  Germans  did 
not  particularly  appreciate,  they  would  have 


184  THE   IRISH   ISSUE 

declared  themselves  pro=Hell  had  lliey  suflBcient 
proof  that  the  devil  was  anti-British  ! 

At  different  times  the  greatest  variety  of 
cooks  lent  a  hand  to  stirring  the  Irish-American 
broth.  Kuno  Meyer,  professor  of  Irish  in  the 
University  of  Liverpool,  appeared  in  America 
as  though  by  schedule,  in  order  to  proclaim 
German  scholarship  in  the  Celtic  field.  Shortly 
before  the  outbreak  of  war  a  more  exciting 
character  turned  up  in  New  York  in  Sir  Roger 
Casement,  who  came  over  for  the  perfectly  ex- 
cusable and  open  purpose  of  buying  arms  to 
counteract  Carson's  gun-running  in  Ulster. 
The  war  carried  him  off  his  feet  and  he  could 
only  murmur  to  his  host  for  some  days,  "Oh, 
the  poor  Kaiser,"  from  which  he  settled  down 
into  an  obsession  that  he  was  Wolfe  Tone  redi- 
vivus.  Finally  he  went  into  Germany  as  the 
ambassador  of  the  Irish- American  extremists. 
From  Ireland  he  carried  no  commission.  After 
his  exploit  his  lieutenant.  Captain  Monteith, 
escaped  to  America  in  the  most  picturesque 
style  of  adventure.  A  more  damaging  person- 
age to  the  British  empire  was  Mrs.  Sheehy 
Skeffington,  who  arrived  by  the  underground 
route  from  Ireland  after  the  murder  of  her  hus- 
band, an  incident  which  if  atrocious  was  not 
condoned.     He  was  a  pure  intellectual  and  one 


IRISH  AMERICA  185 

of  the  most  advanced  thinkers  in  modern  Ire- 
land. He  was  a  man  of  critical  and  brilliant 
parts  and  one  of  the  few  convinced  pacifists 
who  have  ever  been  born  in  Ireland.  He  was 
a  Dublin  Socrates,  and  like  Socrates  he  was 
unjustly  put  to  death  by  the  militarists,  but 
that  should  hardly  have  made  him  an  object 
of  veneration  to  the  pro-Prussian.  Lord  and 
Lady  Aberdeen  courageously  toured  America 
in  Irish  interests  and  were  chiefly  responsible 
for  a  translation  of  the  Ford  industry  to  Cork. 

The  Sinn  Fein  were  better  represented  in 
America  than  the  Irish  party.  In  Seumas 
MacManus  they  had  a  caustic  and  lively  pen, 
and  in  Padraic  Colum  one  of  the  surviving 
poets  of  the  Dublin  pleiad.  But  Colum  was  a 
poet  before  a  politician  and  he  hymned  the 
dirge  of  Casement  and  Kettle  equally.  The 
chief  propagandist  of  the  Redmondite  persua- 
sion was  Patrick  Egan,  who  in  his  remarkable 
career  from  an  Irish  conspirator  to  a  United 
States  minister  had  won  the  confidence  of 
three  remarkable  men — Parnell,  Blaine,  and 
Balmaceda.  He  issued  a  direct  challenge  to 
the  Irish-German  entente  to  which  there  could 
be  no  reply. 

The  extremists  received  less  encouragement 
from  Ireland  than  in  America  herself.     Apart 


186  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

from  the  old  relentless  Fenians,  there  were 
powerful  groups  in  America  who  for  reasons 
often  widely  unconnected  with  Ireland  were 
disposed  to  encourage  a  strong  anti-British 
sentiment  amongst  the  Irish. 

But  the  German  propaganda  amongst  the 
Irish  drew  its  strongest  support  from  English 
politicians.  The  entry  of  Carson  into  the  Cabi- 
net was  a  climax  to  many  minds  and  took  off 
the  edge  of  any  Irish  desire  to  avenge  the  sink- 
ing of  the  Lusitania.  Thanks  to  the  press  gib- 
betings  of  several  years,  Carson  had  come  to 
appear  to  the  Irish-American  in  much  the  same 
light  as  the  Kaiser  appears  to  the  London  cock- 
ney. It  was  taken  as  a  sign  that  home  rule 
would  be  scotched  if  not  nullified. 

During  the  next  twelvemonth  Irish  opinion 
was  wallowing  as  heavily  in  the  trough  of  the 
waves  as  the  official  opinion  of  America,  equally 
irritated,  irrational,  and  irresolute.  Irish- 
Americans,  in  spite  of  their  press,  did  not  know 
what  to  think  or  do.  In  the  spring  of  1916  an 
Irish  race  convention  was  staged  by  huge  and 
galvanic  effort  in  New  York.  Its  effect  was 
slight,  except  so  far  as  it  may  have  ministered 
to  the  smouldering  embers  in  Dublin.  The 
presence  of  pro-Germans  caused  it  to  be  avoided 
and  ridiculed  by  leading  Irishmen,  who  a  few 


IRISH  AMERICA  187 

weeks  later,  on  the  suppression  of  the  rising, 
were  openly  and  intensely  anti-British  them- 
selves. There  was  always  a  large  and  inde- 
pendent party  of  prominent  Irishmen,  who 
viewed  Ireland  artistically  or  historically  rather 
than  politically.  They  disliked  to  think  that 
their  citizenship  could  be  compromised  or  hy- 
phenated by  a  group  of  men  who  had  assumed 
a  dictatorship  over  Irish  opinion  in  America. 
It  was  only  on  rare  occasions  that  such  a  group 
showed  itself.  Between  the  rising  and  the 
executions  the  first  professor  in  the  new  Dublin 
University  to  visit  America  was  entertained  by 
the  really  leading  Irishmen  to  a  banquet  in 
honor  of  "intellectual  home  rule."  Of  the  five 
hosts,  John  D.  Ryan,  of  Butte,  Mont.,  rep- 
resented the  Irish  millionaire,  the  type  of  silent, 
indefatigable  business  man  that  the  Celtic  race 
is  supposed  to  be  unable  to  produce.  John 
Quinn,  described  as  the  most  anti-Prussian  in- 
dividual in  the  States,  yet  a  personal  friend  of 
Casement,  epitomised  the  Gaelic  culture,  the 
battles  of  whose  poets  and  playwrights  he  had 
fought  in  America.  James  Byrne  was  a  leader 
of  the  Irish-American  bar,  and  Judge  Keogh  a 
lifelong  friend  of  Redmond.  Bourke  Cockran 
represented  Irish  eloquence.  His  three  ora- 
tions during  the  war  were  delivered  in  consis- 


188  THE   IRISH   ISSUE 

tent  sequence  on  behalf  of  Armenia,  Ireland, 
and  Belgium, 

The  effect  of  the  Dublin  rising  was,  of  course, 
to  put  the  Clan-na-Gael  into  the  saddle.  A 
great  anti-British  outburst  took  place,  followed 
by  a  grim  suspicion  that  Germany  had  not 
played  quite  fair.  The  Clan-na-Gael  organised 
a  famous  meeting  in  Carnegie  Hall,  to  which 
prominent  and  moderate  Irishmen  went  on  the 
understanding  that  the  meeting  was  a  memo- 
rial and  not  a  political  one.  However,  the 
German  anthem  was  played  before  they  reached 
the  platform.  In  the  course  of  his  speech 
Bourke  Cockran  was  interrupted  by  cries  of 
"Down  with  England,"  to  which  he  replied: 
"'I  say  not  down  with  England  but  up  with 
Ireland."  The  meeting  was  as  much  misrep- 
resented by  the  champions  as  by  the  enemies 
of  Ireland. 

There  could  be  no  doubt  but  that  the  shots 
of  the  firing-squad  in  Dublin  were  heard  all 
round  the  world.  As  Lord  Acton  once  wrote 
of  the  Phoenix  Park  murders,  "the  true  moral 
of  this  catastrophe  can  never  be  made  visible 
to  the  average  Englishman."  The  bungled  ne- 
gotiations which  followed  did  not  assuage  the 
bitterness.  Then  it  became  obvious  why  the 
cynical    Bernstorff    was    the    strongest    anti- 


IRISH  AMERICA  189 

home-ruler  in  the  States,  and  why  the  generous 
wisdom  of  the  British  ambassador  shared  the 
distress  common  to  all  Irishmen  of  good-will. 

The  episode  of  Dublin  afforded  an  interlude 
to  the  drama  of  Verdun  in  the  American  press. 
The  features  of  the  Irish  leaders  swam  into  the 
glass,  blurred  by  a  halo  of  blood.  The  Irish 
section  of  America  then  was  straitly  and  fiercely 
roused.  Thousands  and  thousands  made  them- 
selves heard,  to  whom  Dublin  was  still  a  lost 
Zion  and  the  fallen  capital  of  their  race,  and  to 
whom  Ireland  acts  as  a  magnet,  a  lodestar,  a 
dream,  an  inspiration,  a  blood-madness. 

During  the  week  of  the  Dublin  revolt,  when 
news  was  coming  in  uncertain  scraps,  the  voice 
of  Irish  America  was  lifted  not  unlike  the 
chorus  of  a  Greek  tragedy,  given  over  to  ap- 
prehension, memories,  and  query,  while  some 
foredestined  crime  is  occurring  within.  It  was 
possible  to  know  Irishmen  in  the  streets  of 
New  York  by  their  expression.  Sorrow,  anxi- 
ety, exaltation,  and  a  tangle  of  atavistic  feel- 
ings were  struggling  in  their  features.  The  his- 
torical dislike  of  the  Sassenach  was  struggling 
against  a  certain  distrust  of  participation  with 
the  German.  The  effect  of  the  rising  was  one 
thing.  The  effect  of  the  executions  was  an- 
other.    Then    the    Irish    remembered    Robert 


190  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

Emmet  and  knew  where  they  stood.  They 
were  roused  on  a  sensitive  point  and  an  out- 
burst of  lyrical  anger  swept  through  the  con- 
tinent from  New  York  to  the  Golden  Gates. 
It  all  hinged  on  the  question  of  the  executions. 
It  was  felt  that  only  Irishmen  had  the  right  to 
put  down  a  rising  in  Ireland.  That  only  a  con- 
stituted Irish  government  had  the  right  to  con- 
demn Irishmen  to  death.  And  there  was  none 
except  on  paper.  There  would  have  been  no 
fierce  outburst  of  horror  had  the  insurgent 
leaders  been  shot  down  in  hot  blood  behind 
their  own  barricades.  A  government  in  pos- 
session is  bound  to  meet  arms  with  arms. 
Those  who  were  slain  in  the  fighting  slew  and 
were  slain.  They  had  taken  up  the  sword  and 
they  perished  by  the  sword.  The  event  sur- 
passed all  hopes  of  the  extremists  who  were 
watching  from  America  what  looked  like  a 
fiasco.  They  had  launched  a  rising  of  franc- 
tireurs  and  they  reaped  a  harvest  of  martyrs. 
What  need  not  have  been  more  than  an  ex- 
tended riot  was  raised  to  the  dignity  of  a  revo- 
lution. The  suicidal  folly  of  the  rising  as  an 
appeal  to  arms  was  entirely  forgotten  in  the 
dramatic  deaths  of  the  leaders.  Sinn  Feiners 
limited  in  numbers  and  officials  limited  in 
imagination  had  combined  to  play  the  German- 


IRISH  AMERICA  191 

American  game  beyond  German  dreams.  Sat- 
isfaction was  not  unexpressed  at  the  timely 
arrival  of  a  fresh  batch  of  Irish  martyrs  on  the 
horizon  just  as  Manchester  and  IMitchelstown 
were  retreating  into  the  past.  Deep  in  their 
mugs  German-Americans  toasted  British  rule  in 
Dublin !  But  in  a  thousand  American  homes 
Irish  women  and  children  cried  themselves  to 
sleep. 

The  great  swing  of  Irish  sentiment  actually 
amounting  to  pro-Germanism  might  seem  one 
of  the  most  illogical  and  harebrained  moves 
even  to  the  credit  of  the  Irish,  but  it  can  be 
explained  on  psychological  grounds  as  easily 
as  it  can  be  regretted  for  national  reasons. 
Each  nationality  in  the  States  had  from  time 
to  time  found  a  vent  for  their  hyphenated  emo- 
tion, except  the  Irish,  who  had  waited  and 
waited,  pained  by  the  casualties,  impatient  for 
home  rule,  and  irritated  by  German  sugges- 
tions. They  yearned  for  heroics,  for  Irish  vic- 
tories in  the  field  and  for  the  restoration  of  a 
national  parliament.  Generals  failed  to  give 
them  the  one  and  statesmen  hesitated  to  per- 
mit them  the  other.  AVlien  the  Dublin  revolt 
broke  out,  the  inevitable  occurred  in  America. 
The  Irish  snatched  at  the  husks  of  a  week's 
disastrous  victory  and  in  place  of  the  promised 


192  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

parliament  to  sit  in  the  Bank  of  Ireland  hailed 
the  republic  in  the  post-office.  The  nature  of 
the  connections  between  Ireland  and  America 
were  seen  to  be  more  than  sentimental.  They 
were  subtle,  telepathic,  and  even  hysterical. 
Ireland  is  liable  to  act  under  certain  circum- 
stances as  bravely,  as  iiercely,  as  illogically  as 
a  woman,  and  her  exiles  are  liable  to  act  as 
immoderately  as  those  who  are  in  love  with  a 
woman. 

Celt  and  Saxon  had  long  been  grappling  with 
each  other  in  the  American  arena.  The  prize 
was  public  opinion.  In  time  of  peace,  English 
diplomatists  could  dally  with  the  famous  pass- 
word that  blood  was  thicker  than  water,  but  in 
the  day  of  his  supreme  test  the  Anglo-Saxon 
needed  American  opinion  and  even  American 
support  behind  him.  The  German  was  power- 
less to  affect  American  opinion  without  the  in- 
valuable help  of  the  Celt.  "Prussia  fears  the 
Celtic  political  will  in  America  more  than  she 
fears  the  English  of  England,"  wrote  Francis 
Grierson.  Bernstorff  had  realised  the  strength 
of  Irish  America  and  made  a  clumsy  attempt  to 
harness  it  to  his  schemes  through  the  Clan-na- 
Gael  leaders,  whose  messages  he  despatched  to 
Germany.  The  ultimate  failure  of  the  "Bar- 
bier  de  Sayville,"  as  he  was  known  in  diplo- 


IRISH   x\MERICA  193 

matic  circles,  was  not  displeasing  to  Irish 
opinion,  which  was  much  more  appreciative  of 
Spring-Rice's  undemonstrative  sympathy.  As 
an  American  cardinal  remarked,  "while  carry- 
ing out  his  duty  as  a  British  ambassador  he  has 
not  forgotten  he  is  an  Irishman." 

If  the  "Celt  and  the  Saxon"  was  the  oldest 
of  feuds  in  British  history  it  is  also  the  last  and 
latest.  The  Irish  trouble  has  ceased  to  be 
merely  a  local  sore  or  latent  affliction.  It  has 
become  a  world-wide  and  pronounced  irrita- 
tion, which  the  past  year  has  seen  intensified  in 
every  limb  of  empire.  Gardiner  once  wrote  of 
Anglo-Irish  relations,  that  whereas  "the  Eng- 
lish sovereigns  had  been  confronted  by  a  con- 
geries of  Irish  tribes,  the  English  common- 
wealth was  confronted  by  an  Irish  nation." 
To-day  the  British  Empire  is  met  and  queried 
by  a  great  and  international  brotherhood  of 
Irish  blood  within  and  without  her  borders, 
upon  whose  undiminishing  devotion  to  Ireland 
the  sun  never  sets.  Let  none  set  aside  as  an 
obscure  domestic  quarrel  the  crisis  that  came 
simultaneously  in  the  relations  between  Eng- 
land and  Ireland  as  well  as  in  the  relations  be- 
tween America  and  England.  Diplomatists  do 
not  like  to  admit,  and  politicians  for  equally 
obvious  reasons  seek  to  conceal,  the  real  heart 


194  THE   IRISH  ISSUE 

of  controversy  between  England  and  America. 
^'By  our  methods  in  Ireland  we  have  sown 
dragon's  teeth  in  every  quarter  of  the  world," 
wrote  T.  W.  Russell,  member  of  an  adminis- 
tration which  has  since  sharpened  rather  than 
blunted  them. 

The  aftermath  of  the  rising  was  the  pro- 
tracted and  painful  trial  of  Roger  Casement, 
on  which  Irish  attention  in  America  was  closely 
fixed  until  his  execution.  The  most  strenuous 
efforts  were  made  by  both  his  friends  and 
critics  in  America  to  obtain  a  reprieve.  Owing 
to  conflicting  accounts  as  to  his  motives,  both 
extremists  and  moderates  were  for  different 
reasons  in  favour  of  his  pardon,  except  a  few 
who  gave  the  painful  impression  of  feeling  that 
it  would  be  best  for  his  reputation  as  a  patriot 
to  suffer  the  extreme  penalty.  In  this  as  in 
one  or  two  other  matters  the  British  Govern- 
ment showed  themselves  willing  to  oblige.  A 
petition  bearing  the  very  best  names  in  Irish 
America  was  forwarded  in  vain.  After  his  ex- 
ecution a  judicial  but  striking  article  from  John 
Quinn  appeared  in  the  New  York  Times.  It 
was  strongly  written  and  it  smote  friend  and 
foe.  After  bearing  witness  to  the  Quixotic 
chivalry  of  Casement,  he  commented:  "His  ex- 
ecution was  just  what  Germany  then  needed  to 


IRISH  AMERICA  195 

offset  the  execution  of  Captain  Fryatt."  Un- 
sparing of  the  Enghsh  methods  of  treating 
Casement  in  the  press,  he  had  a  word  to  say, 
also,  of  Germany: 

England  sprang  the  trap  that  took  his  life.  Germany  pushed 
him  into  that  trap.  Germany  needed  a  diversion  then  and  so 
like  Judases  they  betrayed  the  man  who  had  trusted  them. 
If  England  was  pitiless,  Germany's  act  was  infamous. 

An  attempt  was  made  to  bring  some  moral 
charge  against  Casement  after  his  death,  which 
the  American  press  declined  to  handle,  and 
owing  to  private  protests  the  matter  was 
ended.  But  the  echoes  and  counter-echoes 
in  Irish  America  were  lasting.  Casement  had 
made  a  sorry  mess  of  his  career,  but  the 
British  Government  seemed  to  have  blundered 
even  more,  was  the  summary  of  American 
opinion. 

The  arrest  of  John  McNeill,  after  doing  a 
man's  share  in  heading  off  the  rising,  was  a 
cause  of  varied  opinion  in  America.  Owing  to 
the  resentment  of  the  extremists  at  the  part  he 
had  taken,  many  of  his  friends  thought  it  best 
he  should  remain  in  prison  for  a  while  and  dree 
his  weird.  In  view  of  his  unique  attainments 
as  a  Celtic  scholar,  a  movement  was  made  for 
his  release.     A  report  of  his  trial  was  obtained 


196  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

privately  and  an  application  for  pardon  made 
on  his  behalf  by  John  Quinn  and  the  present 
writer.  The  British  Government  were  ap- 
proached and  found  amenable,  but  their  clem- 
ency was  negatived  from  Dublin  unless  Mc- 
Neill should  give  a  pledge  to  take  no  further 
part  in  politics  during  the  war,  which  he  was 
unwilling  to  do.  After  the  entry  of  America 
into  the  war,  suggestions  were  brought  to  bear 
by  Lord  Shaughnessy  and  Sir  Charles  Fitz- 
Patrick  from  Canada  and  by  the  British 
embassy  in  Washington.  The  Cabinet  then 
decided  to  release  all  the  political  prisoners. 

The  execution  and  imprisonment  of  Sinn 
Feiners  in  Ireland  proved  the  ruin  of  the  Red- 
mondite  organisation  in  America.  Soon  after 
the  rising  Mr.  Redmond  had  taken  the  ground 
that  the  affair  was  an  attack  on  home  rule  and 
had  cabled  to  the  editor  of  Ireland: 


The  attempt  to  torpedo  Home  Rule  and  the  Irish  Party  has 
failed.  Damage  has  been  done,  life  has  been  lost,  but  the  ship 
has  not  been  sunk.  The  whole  thing  has  been  organised  by 
those  in  Ireland  and  in  America  who  have  always  been  the 
open  and  irreconcilable  enemies  of  Home  Rule  and  of  the 
Irish  Party.  Though  the  hand  of  Germany  was  in  the  whole 
thing,  it  was  not  so  much  sympathy  for  Germany  as  hatred 
of  Home  Rule  and  of  us  which  was  at  the  bottom  of  the  move- 
ment. It  was  even  more  an  attempt  to  hit  us  than  to  hit 
England. 


IRISH  AMERICA  197 

Whether  Germany  had  a  hand  in  it  or  not, 
there  could  be  no  doubt  of  his  further  words : 

that  the  one  security  for  good  order  as  well  as  good  gov- 
ernment in  Ireland  is  a  native  executive  and  Parliament  backed 
by  Irish  opinion,  and  that  if  such  an  executive  had  been  in 
existence  during  the  last  six  months  there  would  have  been 
no  Dublin  riot. 

Though  individual  friends  stood  by  Mr. 
Redmond,  headed  by  Judge  Keogh,  Stephen 
McFarland,  Michael  Jordan,  and  men  of 
similar  integrity,  there  was  a  clean  sweep  of 
Redmondite  popularity,  chiefly  on  the  ques- 
tion as  to  whether  the  Irish  party  were  respon- 
sible for  the  executions.  The  statement  that 
they  had  cheered  the  news  in  the  House  of 
Commons  was  disproved,  but  it  is  difiicult  to 
say  who  succeeded  in  averting  the  further 
executions  which  were  contemplated  by  the 
authorities.  Mr.  Redmond  did  his  full  share. 
Sir  Francis  Vane's  prompt  action  against  or- 
ders had  its  effect  as  well  as  the  cable  message 
which  Cardinal  Gibbons  sent  through  Sir  Cecil 
Spring-Rice  to  London.  Mr.  Roosevelt's  frank 
opinion  that  the  mishandling  of  Ireland  was 
not  a  blunder  but  a  crime  became  known  to 
friends  of  the  Allies. 

The  Irish  party  failed  to  be  represented  in 
America  until  an  Irish  commission,  consisting 


198  THE   IRISH   ISSUE 

of  T.  P.  O'Connor  and  Richard  Hazleton,  M.P., 
made  its  appearance,  when  Irish  America 
was  no  longer  on  speaking  terms  with  the 
Irish  party.  On  the  evening  of  their  arrival 
the  friends  of  Mr.  Redmond  held  a  public 
meeting  in  memory  of  Major  Willie  Red- 
mond in  New  York,  which  though  in  the 
nature  of  a  funeral  service,  was  interrupted  by 
Sinn  Feiners.  Mayor  Mitchel  delivered  the 
eulogy  of  the  dead.  To  the  Sinn  Feiners  he 
addressed  himself  in  words  which  received  loud 
applause,  and  epitomised  real  Irish-American 
feeling: 

I  want  to  say  to  those  who  in  sincerity  are  so  blinded  by  a 
prejudice  for  which  God  knows  I  cannot  blame  them,  for  it  is 
the  product  of  700  years  of  mistreatment,  that  they  cannot 
see  into  the  present  situation  and  understand  it.  I  want  to 
tell  them  that  here  is  an  issue  so  vital  to  the  world  that  preju- 
dice must  be  sunk  and  all  who  love  liberty  must  band  together. 

The  bitterness  felt  towards  Mr.  Redmond 
was  assuaged  in  a  great  degree  by  his  brother's 
death.  As  an  Irish  writer  wrote  to  him  from 
America: 

That  he  has  died  for  Ireland  and  effectively  for  Ireland,  there 
is  no  doubt  in  this  country,  even  among  those  who  have  been 
most  opposed  to  the  Irish  Party.  Prayers  for  his  soul  have 
been  frequent  in  the  churches  and  his  singularly  beautiful 
will  has  touched  the  wayward  heart  of  our  whole  race.     As 


IRISH  AMERICA  199 

an  event  it  has  electrified  America.  It  is  felt  that  you  have 
paid  the  price  of  liberty  in  your  own  person  and  in  the  blood 
of  your  own  kin,  and  the  sympathy  for  you  is  greater  than  you 
can  imagine. 

The  entry  of  America  had  brought  the  Irish 
question  to  a  cKmax,  as  Lord  Northchfife  was 
astute  enough  to  reahse,  for  the  London  Times 
was  thrown  open  to  American  opinion.  Roose- 
velt, Taft,  and  Cardinal  Gibbons  were  among 
those  who  answered.  Roosevelt  felt  that  ''both 
permanently  and  as  regards  this  particular  war 
it  would  be  an  immense  advantage  to  the  em- 
pire to  give  Ireland  home  rule."  Taft  believed 
"It  would  much  help  to  solidify  and  hearten 
American  public  sentiment  in  the  great  cause." 
Cardinal  Gibbons  compared  Ulster  to  the 
American  South  and  added:  "Separate  nation- 
alities must  be  recognised,  but  no  nation  can 
be  permanently  divided.  Since  I  have  been 
asked,  then  the  only  way  I  see  out  of  the  diflB- 
culty  is  the  way  of  guarantees.  The  present 
position  is  impossible.  Ireland  cannot  be  sac- 
rificed to  a  few  counties  in  Ulster.  These  few 
counties  cannot  be  sacrificed  to  the  rest  of 
Ireland." 

American  opinion  seriously  confronted  the 
British  Commission,  which  under  Mr.  Balfour 
visited  the  country.     Northcliffe's  cable  that 


200  THE  IRISH   ISSUE 

Mr.  Balfour  had  it  in  his  power  to  settle  the 
Irish  question  raised  little  less  than  an  agita- 
tion in  Washington.  A  hundred  representa- 
tives in  Congress  cabled  to  Lloyd-George  in 
Ireland's  behalf.  Mr.  Balfour  received  a  depu- 
tation which  may  be  described  as  representing 
the  cream  of  the  Irish  contribution  to  America. 
It  consisted  of  Justice  Morgan  O'Brien,  of  the 
New  York  Supreme  Court,  Colonel  Robert  Em- 
met, a  descendant  of  Emmet's  brother,  a  Prot- 
estant and  a  West  Pointer,  former  Mayor  John 
Fitzgerald  of  Boston,  Lawrence  Godkin,  of  the 
New  York  bar,  son  of  the  veteran  Irish  cham- 
pion yet  friend  of  England,  and  John  Quinn. 

Mr.  Balfour  stated  that  it  was  a  mystery  to 
him  how  Irishmen  whose  sympathy  with  the 
Poles  was  traditional,  could  be  pro-German  in 
this  war,  when  they  contrasted  Germany's 
treatment  of  Poland  during  the  last  century 
with  England's  actions  in  Ireland  during  the 
same  time.  He  added  that  while  he  had  no 
authority  to  speak  for  the  Cabinet  on  the  ques- 
tion of  home  rule,  he  had  been  profoundly  im- 
pressed by  the  representative  character  of  the 
delegation  and  the  moderation  of  the  views  ex- 
pressed, and  that  he  believed  that  they  repre- 
sented not  merely  Irish- American  opinion  gen- 
erally, but  the  desires  of  the  vast  mass  of  the 


IRISH  AMERICA  201 

American  people,  that  the  Irish  question  should 
be  settled  to  the  satisfaction  of  Ireland,  and 
that  he  would  cable  to  the  Cabinet  the  opinion 
of  the  delegation  that  a  prompt  settlement  of 
the  home  rule  question,  without  excluding  any 
part  of  Ireland,  would  be  hailed  with  satisfac- 
tion not  merely  by  representative  Irishmen  but 
by  Americans  generally. 

A  somewhat  mysterious  element  had  been 
the  President's  attitude  towards  home  rule  in 
spite  of  his  explicit  sentiment  in  favour  of  the 
small  nations.  Himself  both  of  Scotch-Irish 
and  Celtic  stocks,  he  cherished  the  normal 
American  view  as  to  Irish  freedom.  In  spite 
of  the  old  Irish  alliance  with  the  Democrats,  he 
was  bitterly  attacked  by  the  extremists  before 
his  second  election  and  so  violently  even,  that 
he  administered  a  public  rebuke  by  telegram 
to  one  of  their  number. 

The  voting  at  the  presidential  election  was 
very  confused.  Many  of  the  Irish  fell  away 
on  the  Mexican  question.  A  number  of  the 
old  Democrats,  like  John  Crimmins,  supported 
the  President  and  later  found  themselves  in  a 
position  to  do  Ireland  a  conspicuous  service. 

Mr.  Crimmins,  as  the  doyen  of  loyal  Irish- 
Americans,  addressed  a  private  letter  to  the 
President,  in  which  he  wrote: 


20^2  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

It  would  be  most  timely  and  would  have  the  heartfelt  grati- 
tude of  millions  of  people  in  this  and  other  lands,  who  have 
long  hoped,  and  many  prayed,  for  Ireland  as  a  small  nation 
to  have  autonomy,  thereby  establishing  peace  with  England 
and  among  English-speaking  people.  Then  if  an  emergency 
should  arise  there  would  be  all  for  one,  and  one  for  all.  Mr. 
President,  you  have  gone  a  long  step  in  that  direction  in  de- 
claring the  rights  of  small  nations — another  step  may  be  the 
means  of  reaching  the  goal  for  the  Irish  people. 

The  reply  from  the  President's  secretary  was 
to  assure  Mr.  Crimmins  "of  the  President's 
keen  interest  in  this  matter,  and  of  the  fact 
that  in  every  way  he  properly  can  he  is  showing 
his  sympathy  with  the  claim  of  Ireland  for 
home  rule." 

The  keen-sighted  extremists  seem  to  have 
calculated  that  Wilson  by  carrying  the  solid 
South  and  the  West  would  be  in  a  position  to 
enter  the  war  with  a  united  country  in  a  way 
difficult  if  not  impossible  to  Hughes  should  he 
be  elected,  with  only  the  East  and  a  part  of  the 
West.  That  a  Democrat  President  in  his  sec- 
ond term  was  an  approximation  to  war  un- 
doubtedly induced  the  extremists  among  the 
Irish  to  approach  Hughes  and  work  for  his 
election.  On  the  other  hand,  it  was  clear  that 
Bernstorff  and  his  American  friends  desired 
Wilson's  re-election,  as  usual  reckoning  with- 
out their  host. 


IRISH  AMERICA  203 

However,  just  as  many  Irish  and  Germans 
voted  for  Wilson,  on  the  ground  that  he  would 
keep  the  country  out  of  war,  as  for  Hughes, 
on  the  ground  that  whether  he  wished  to  or 
not,  he  would  be  unable  to  do  otherwise. 

The  entry  of  America  into  the  war  did  not 
cut  the  ground  from  under  the  Irish-German 
press,  for  they  skilfully  altered  it  to  an  extreme 
pro-American  attitude  demanding  that  Ameri- 
can interest  could  be  best  served  by  an  imme- 
diate peace.  The  President's  statements  in 
favour  of  democracy  roused  a  most  agitated 
Irish  comment,  which  found  vent  in  prolonged 
but  representative  correspondences  in  the 
New  York  Evening  Post  and  the  Jesuit  weekly 
America,  The  protagonists  on  the  constitu- 
tional side  were  Doctor  Sigourney  Fay  and  the 
present  writer.  They  received  pulverising  re- 
plies from  Judge  Cohalan,  John  Devoy,  and 
Mrs.  Sheehy  SkeflSngton,  on  the  Sinn  Fein 
point  of  view.^ 

In  a  rejoinder  the  present  writer  suggested: 

I  believe  it  would  be  a  masterstroke  on  England's  part  to 
accept  an  Irish  republic,  for  the  first  business  of  an  Irish  re- 
public would  be  to  effect  a  defensive  alliance  with  England 
against  the  occupation  of  Ireland  by  any  foreign  foe.  A  Ger- 
man coaling-station,  for  instance,  would  be  excluded  from  Ire- 
land out  of  friendship  for  the  United  States,  as  well  as  from 
the  practical  consideration  that  it  is  not  to  Ireland's  advantage 


204  THE  IRISH  ISSUE 

for  England  to  be  conquered  by  Germany.  To  be  frank,  it  is 
undeniable  that  England's  losses  and  dijQSculties  during  the 
war  have  led  her  to  take  a  more  serious  view  of  Irish  claims. 
But  her  total  defeat  would  prevent  any  view  being  taken  at 
all  favourable  or  unfavourable,  for  Ireland  would  be  engulfed 
in  her  collapse.  The  reduction  of  England  from  the  position 
of  "Premier  Power"  to  an  equality  with  France  and  America 
in  the  world's  democracy  is  good  for  both  Ireland  and  Eng- 
land herself.  But  a  conquest  of  England  or  the  payment  of 
indemnity  to  Germany  would  fall  as  unpleasantly  on  Ireland 
as  on  the  United  States.  Miserable  as  it  is  to  think  of  an 
English  army  of  occupation  in  Ireland  to-day,  a  German  army 
of  invasion  would  be  far  worse. 

In  his  remarkable  article  replying  to  mine,  Judge  Cohalan, 
whose  extreme  devotion  to  Ireland  Dublin  Castle  has  certainly 
tried  to  justify,  gives  the  impression  that  his  mind  tends 
towards  the  Apocalyptic  view,  common  to  all  the  Messianic 
nations,  in  regard  to  all  Power  Imperial.  Just  as  the  broken 
Jews  and  the  persecuted  Christians  ever  harped  on  the  com- 
ing overthrow  of  Babylon  and  Rome,  much  of  Irish  mystico- 
political  writing  foreshadows  the  destruction  of  England. 
However,  this  has  been  postponed  by  the  action  of  the  United 
States  and  it  is  well  to  consider  the  more  practical  necessities 
of  the  situation. 

Judge  Cohalan  recalls  the  interesting  fact  that  the  submarine 
which  has  all  but  imperilled  England  to-day,  was  reduced  to 
a  practical  form  by  Holland,  an  Irishman.  Possibly  its  origi- 
nal aim  was  that  which  it  has  only  just,  and  I  think  happily, 
failed  to  accomplish.  It  is  equally  curious  that  Lord  Acton, 
when  occupying  the  history  chair  of  Cambridge,  was  asked 
to  name  the  moment  of  England's  greatest  peril  and  answered 
with  one  of  those  brilliant  impromptus  of  which  his  learning 
was  capable :  The  day  that  Fulton  offered  his  steamboat  to  the 
French  Government.  It  was  refused  by  the  latter,  but  the 
moral  lies  in  the  fact  that  Fulton's  father  was  born  in  Kilkenny. 

The  moral  of  to-day  is  that  the  submarine  jeopardises  Ire- 


IRISH  AMERICA  205 

land  just  as  much  as  England.     The  rightful  solution  of  the 
Irish  problem  is  as  vital  to  England  to=day  as  to  Ireland, 

In  conclusion  Ireland's  greatest  international 
asset  has  been  and  always  will  be  the  feeling 
which  Americans  have  for  those  who  have  be- 
come Americans  without  losing  their  Irish  qual- 
ities. To  make  the  most  of  this,  Irish  opinion 
in  America  should  be  mobile.  It  should  not 
be  nailed  to  certain  words  and  phrases  contain- 
ing the  maximum  of  exasperation  and  the  mini- 
mum of  placability.  It  should  be  as  capable 
of  accepting  the  olive-branch  as  of  administer- 
ing criticism.  It  should  be  a  force  sensible  of 
results,  open  to  justice,  fluid,  amenable,  inde- 
pendent, generous,  yet  stern — above  all,  un- 
swerving in  the  interest  of  the  Irish  cause  as 
an  international  and  not  merely  as  a  local  ques- 
tion. To  such  a  force  statesmen  and  diploma- 
tists would  listen — if  not  with  agreement,  at 
least  with  attention. 

Irish  America  is  not  the  blinded,  brainless 
stratum  of  society  that  her  enemies  would  have 
us  believe.  Eyes  she  hath,  and  seeth.  Brains 
she  hath,  and  thinketh.  But  she  goeth  her 
own  way — which  is  a  thousand  ways — and  her 
strength  and  influence  as  a  legitimate  force  in 
international  questions  are  dissipated.  Few 
Irish  writers  in  America  have  perceived  this 


206  THE   IRISH  ISSUE 

vision  as  well  as  John  Boyle  O'Reilly,  who 
wrote  in  the  Pilot:  *' Irishmen  exercising  in 
America  the  power  of  their  moral  force  are  a 
leaven  to  be  heeded  more  by  English  statesmen 
than  the  armed  rebellion  of  the  same  men  or 
of  their  fathers  in  Ireland." 

From  America  Sir  Horace  Plunkett  sped  to 
Dublin  to  assume  the  chairmanship  of  the  Irish 
convention. 


EPILOGUE 

So  winds  the  woof.  So  sags  the  skein.  If 
Ireland  cannot  be  separated  from  England, 
she  cannot  be  isolated  from  America.  Out  of 
the  American  Revolution  and  Civil  War  was 
bred  an  Irish-American  issue,  which  Mitchel 
and  Parnell  did  no  more  than  shape  at  the 
time.  Sinn  Fein  has  since  caused  convulsion 
to  the  Irish  cause  but  not  collapse.  It  abides 
decision.  No  great  American  has  felt  other- 
wise than  Motley  when  he  wrote  fifty  years 
ago:  "Justice,  Truth,  and  Faith  are  immu- 
table. Imagine  that  Ireland  had  been  always 
dealt  with  since  the  days  of  the  Plantagenets 
in  accordance  with  those  principles.  Would 
there  have  been  an  Irish  Question  at  this  mo- 
ment striking  down  to  the  foundations  of  the 
Empire?" 

Few  great  Englishmen  but  feel  the  same 
to-day.  America  will  not  pass  over  the  Truth. 
England  cannot  allow  her  own  Faith  to  be 
questioned,  and  Ireland  can  only  do  that 
Justice  to  the  allied  cause  which  is  not  out- 
side of  justice  to  herself.  Fiat  Justitia^  mat 
Germania  I 

207 


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MAY  2  9 18  J 


l^SUB^  SHAi^e 


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